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THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS 
Edited by ]Oli^ H. KERR, D.D. 



THE TEACHING OF JESUS 

CONCERNING 

HIS OWN PERSON 



Wayland Hoyt, D.D., LL.D. 



THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS 



CONCERNING 

HIS OWN MISSION. Frank H. Foster. Ready. 
THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE 
CHURCH. Geerhardus Vos. 

GOD THE FATHER. 

Archibald Thomas Robertson. 
THE SCRIPTURES. 

David James Burrell. 
THE HOLY SPIRIT. Louis B. Crane. 
CHRISTIAN CONDUCT. 

Andrew C. Zenos. 
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 

Gerard B. F. Hallock. 
THE FUTURE LIFE. Willis J. Beecher. 
HIS OWN PERSON. Wayland Hojt. 
JESUS THE TEACHER. In preparation, 

A Series of volumes on the ** Teachings of Jesus '' 
by eminent writers and divines. 

Cloth bound. i2mo. Price 75 cts. each postpaid. 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 



THE TEACHING OF JESUS 



CONCERNING 



HIS OWN PERSON 



By 

Wayland Hoyt, D.D., LL.D. 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 

150 NASSAU STREET 
NEW YORK 



■ r^H7 



NOV 23 i907 

Cooyngri?. Jiniry 
GLASS /fl XXc/No. 



'COPY B. 



By AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 



Printed from Type set and from Pbtes 
made withia the United States, 



TO MY CLASSES 

IN THE 

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF TEMPLE COLLEGE 

PHILADELPHIA 

MANLY, EARNEST MEN, WHOM 

IT IS A RARE DELIGHT TO TEACH 



" Christianity is non-existent apart from Christ ; 
it centres in Christ ; it radiates, now as at the 
first, from Christ. It is not a mere doctrine 
bequeathed by Him to a world with which He 
has ceased to have dealings ; it perishes outright 
when men attempt to abstract it from the Living 
Person of its Founder." 

Bampton LectureSy Canon Liddon. 



FOREWORD 



rHE thoughtful young person I 
have had in mind in what I have 
written — the young person buf- 
feted by the questions of many sorts, in 
these questioning days — I have sought to 
show the One to hold to, even our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. Here is at 
once rest and safety in personal allegiance 
to the Personal Christ. If the young 
soul will but keep unrelaxing grip on 
Him who is at once our Lord and our 
great Brother, all will be well. This is 
the essential thing for any one. I have 
tried to show that it is also the most rea- 
sonable thing. 

vii 



viii Foreword 

I have freely used both quotation and 
reference, indicating their sources as I 
went along, because to myself books of 
such sort have alv^ays been the most in- 
teresting and helpful. 

It, as the result of this book, but one 
soul shall be fastened in a more deter- 
mined and devoted loyalty to Jesus, I 
shall not have w^rought in vain. 

Wayland Hoyt. 

Philadelphia, Pa., Nov. ist, 1907. 



^ 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. The Fact of Jesus i 

1. What EVEN Doubters Confess . 3 

2. The Universality of Jesus . . 10 

3. The Teachings of Jesus ...31 

4. The Astounding Claims of 

Jesus 45 

5. The Sinlessness of Jesus ... 59 

6. The Dynamic and Perpetuating 

Power of Jesus 73 

7. The Personal Appearance of 

Jesus yy 

II. The Question : Who then is This ?. 81 

III. The Answer of Jesus 85 

1. The Son of Man 87 

2. The Teaching of this Self-Des- 

ignation 96 

ix 



X Contents 

PAGE 

3. The Son OF God 122 

4. The Messiah . 131 

5. Master, Lord, God 132 

6. What must be Gathered from 

THESE Self-Designations ? . .135 

7. The Problem of the Person of 

Jesus, and a Hint as to its 
Possible Solution . . . .150 
IV. Some Conclusions . . . . . .171 

1. As TO THE Supernatural Birth . 171 

2. As TO THE Miracles of Jesus . 179 

3. As TO THE Resurrection of Je- 

sus and the Other Life . . .180 

4. As to the Rational Personal 

Attitude toward Jesus . . • 189 
Indexes 193 



CHAPTER I 

The Fact of Jesus 

/WAS sitting, one summer afternoon, 
on the veranda of the hotel in Ta- 
coma, in the State of Washington. 
There was scarcely a trace of mist in all 
the sky. There was wide prospect be- 
fore me — a portion of the City of Ta- 
coma, hills, plains, various verdure, the 
clear waters of the Tacoma Bay, merging 
into the deep waters of the Puget Sound, 
and these reaching onward and outward 
into the Pacific Sea. 

But there was one object in that pros- 
pect which irresistibly drew my vision. 

A I 



2 His Own Person 

Much as I might seek to look other- 
where, I could not keep my sight from 
distracting itself from all else and fixing 
itself, fascinated, on that masterfulness. 
That swayed sceptre over everything. 
That dwarfed city, plain, hills, fair waters 
flashing back the sunlight. That sover- 
eign object was Mount Ranier, or Mount 
Tacoma, as it is variously called. It 
towered there against the blue of heaven 
fourteen thousand four hundred and 
forty-four feet. It was a perfect cone. 
And all its altitude was dazzling with the 
sheen of the eternal snows. 

Thus, capturing the world's vision, 
there rises on its sight a lonely, unique, 
vivid, coercing, supreme Personality. 
Even Renan calls Him '^the incompa- 
rable man.'^ 

That Personality is a fact of history. 
Whatever men may say about Him, they 
must confess that, in some shape at least. 
He actually was. Theories of mere myth 
concerning Him, of poetic and filmy 



The Fact of Jesus 3 

imaginings, of daring and fine inven- 
tion such as the novelists use in manu- 
facturing their characters — theories of 
such sort shatter themselves against His 
historic reality as the waves do against 
the rocks. In some guise He veritably 
was, as actual as Caesar, as substantial 
as Marcus Aurelius, as existent as Na- 
poleon. 

/. What even Doubters Confess 

Let these, some of them hesitant and 
grudging about His claims, bear their 
witness, notwithstanding, to the certainty 
of the footmarks this Jesus has made in 
history. 

Said Rousseau, '' Shall we suppose the 
evangelical history a mere fiction? In- 
deed, my friend, it bears no marks of fic- 
tion. On the contrary, th? history of 
Socrates, which no one presunies to doubt, 
is not so well attested as that of Jesus 
Christ. Such a supposition, in fact, only 
shifts the difficulty without obviating it. 



4 His Own Person 

It is more inconceivable that a number of 
persons should agree to write such a his- 
tory, than that one should furnish the sub- 
ject of it. The Jewish authors were in- 
capable of the diction, and strangers to 
the morality, contained in the Gospel. 
The marks of its truth are so striking and 
inimitable, that the inventor would be 
a more astonishing character than the 
hero." 

Mr. Emerson speaks of '^ the unique 
impressions of Jesus upon mankind, 
whose name, is not so much written as 
ploughed into the history of this world.'' 

Said Theodore Parker, ^^ Shall we be 
told, such a man never lived ; the whole 
story is a lie ? Suppose that Plato and 
Newton never lived ; that their story is a 
lie. But who did their works, and thought 
their thoughts? It takes a Newton to 
forge a Newton. What man could 
have fabricated a Jesus? None but a 
esus. 

Said David Friedrich Strauss, ''And 



vX 



The Fact of Jesus 5 

this Christ, as far as He is inseparable 
from the highest style of religion, is his- 
torical, not mythical ; is an individual, no 
mere symbol. To the historical person 
of Christ belongs all in His life that ex- 
hibits His religious perfection, His dis- 
courses, His moral action, and His pas- 
sion. He remains the highest model of 
religion within the reach of our thought, 
and no perfect piety is possible without 
His presence in the heart.'' 

Said the great German, Goethe, in his 
Conversations with Eckermann^ '' I look 
upon all the Four Gospels as thoroughly 
genuine ; for there is in them the reflec- 
tion of a greatness which emanated from 
the person of Jesus, and which was as 
divine a kind as ever was seen upon 
earth. If I am asked whether it is in my 
nature to pay Him devout reverence, I 
say. Certainly. I bow before Him as the 
divine manifestation of the highest prin- 
ciple of morality." 

Says Mr. William E. H. Lecky, in his 



6 His Own Person 

History of European Morals, ^^ It was re- 
served for Christianity to present to the 
world an ideal character, which, through 
all the changes of eighteen centuries, has 
inspired the hearts of men with an im- 
passioned love, has shown itself capable 
of acting on all ages, nations, tempera- 
ments, and conditions ; has been not only 
the highest pattern of virtue, but the 
strongest incentive to its practice ; and 
has exercised so deep an influence, that 
it may be truly said that the simple rec- 
ord of three short years of active life has 
done more to regenerate and soften man- 
kind than all the disquisitions of philoso- 
phers and all the exhortations of moral- 
ists. This has, indeed, been the well- 
spring of whatever is best and purest in 
the Christian life. Amid all the sins and 
failings, amid all the priestcraft and per- 
secution and fanaticism, that have defaced 
the Church, it has preserved, in the char- 
acter and example of its Founder, an en- 
during principle of regeneration.'' 



The Fact of Jesus 7 

Said Frances P. Cobbe, ''One thing, 
however, we may hold with approximate 
certainty ; and that is, that all the highest 
doctrines, the purest moral precepts, the 
most profound spiritual revelations re- 
corded in the Gospels, were actually those 
of Christ Himself. The originator of the 
Christian movement must have been the 
greatest soul of His time, as of all time. If 
He did not speak those words of wisdom, 
who could have recorded them for Him ? 

'It would have taken a Jesus to forge a 

J> 5> 
esus. 

Said George A. Chadwick, " No unreal 
personage wields a power like the power 
of Jesus. The myths of India cover, 
like a veil, the sleeping and impassive face 
of Asia ; but when the voice of Europe 
penetrates their slumber, her first uneasy 
movement begins to shake them off. 
But Jesus leads the West in her wakeful 
quest for truth, fires her energies, devel- 
ops her originality, inspires her exploits, 
peoples the oceans with her ships, and 



8 His Own Person 

the wilds with her colonies. He is, as 
Paul described Him, not only a living 
soul, but a life-giving Spirit. 

"' Here the story of Jesus parts company 
with every creation of human genius. 
The noblest figures painted by the grand- 
est literary artists hang idly on the walls 
of the great picture-galleries of culture. 
Achilles is no longer desired in battle. 
The wandering Ulysses is sighed for in 
Ithaca no more. What's Hecuba to us ? 
The murder of Duncan, the wrongs of 
the Prince of Denmark, the broken heart 
of Lear — what politics do these affect? 
The party of Jesus — that is the holy 
Church throughout all the world. 

'^ In the Palestine of the year one, what 
is there to explain Christ ? Did this 
eagle, with sun-sustaining eyes, emerge 
from the slime of the age of Tiberius, 
the basest age in history ? Natural causes 
— the struggle to exist, the race which is 
to the swift, and the battle which is to the 
strong — did this teach a Jew, whose in- 



TJie Fact of Jesus 9 

terested intellect and His law both said, 
^ Thou shalt hate thine enemies, ' to pray 
upon His cross for those who nailed Him 
there?'' 

Said John Stuart Mill, '' It is no use to 
say that Christ, as exhibited in the Gos- 
pels, is not historical, and that we know 
not how much of what is admirable has 
been superadded by the tradition of His 
followers. The tradition of His followers 
suffices to have inserted any number of 
miracles, and may have inserted all the 
miracles He is reputed to have wrought. 
But who among His disciples or among 
their proselytes was capable of inventing 
the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imag- 
ining the life and character revealed in 
the Gospels r Certainly not the fisher- 
men of Gahlee, certainly not St. Paul, and 
still less the early Christian writers, in 
whom nothing is more evident than that 
the good which was in them was all de- 
rived, as they all professed that it was, 
from a higher source.'' 



/ 



lo His Own Person 

Study, a little, some of the traits and 
qualities of this historic Jesus. 

//. The Universality of Jesus 

What force, after all, is more piercing 
and fashioning than Heredity ? Take that 
proverb of heredity, which so summarizes 
and expresses it, ^^ he is a chip of the old 
block." Yes, the child is, to a great de- 
gree, the reproduction of the parent. 
Race-type, national-type, family-type — 
nothing is more structural and evident 
than are the presence and persistence of 
these types. 

I w^as passing once through the cor- 
ridor of the British Houses of Parliament 
— that which connects the House of 
Lords on the one hand and the House 
of Commons on the other. Just as I en- 
tered, Mr. Disraeli was walking through. 
I had a chance for a good close look at 
him. I seized the chance. I can never 
forget what a thorough Jew he seemed. 
The marks of his Jewish ancestry were 



The Fact of Jesus 1 1 

as plain and distinguishing as was the 
masterful man himself. 

Take the Jews, for example. What 
an instance they are of the empire of 
heredity ! They have been ravaged — as 
when at the destruction of their sacred 
city under the Roman Titus, three fac- 
tions within the city began to murder one 
another, and the unburied dead produced 
a pestilence, and starvation drove to can- 
nibalism, and not less than one million 
one hundred thousand perished in the six 
months of the dreadful siege. They have 
been hated — as when Constantine de- 
clared them the most hateful of nations, 
and the centuries since have deluged them 
with scorn. They have been persecuted 
— as when the edict went forth that the 
land which had given Mohammed birth 
should be defiled no longer with He- 
brew feet ; as when, at the coronation 
of Richard First of England, they were 
hunted out that they might be butchered ; 
as when, in 1287, all the Jews in that 



12 His Own Person 

realm of England were to be seized in a 
single day, their goods confiscated to the 
king, and sixteen thousand six hundred 
and sixty were banished from the coun- 
try, and if one remained after a fixed day 
he was to be hanged without mercy ; as 
when, in Spain under Ferdinand and 
Isabella, eight hundred thousand of them 
were forced to leave their homes, their 
synagogues, their schools, their tombs ; 
as when, through so many generations, 
they have been plundered when rich, and 
taxed when poor, and have been almost 
everywhere despised and spit upon. And 
yet, though the Jews have been so long 
and so variously battered, the distinctive, 
hereditary Jewish type is as plainly present 
as it was in Abraham himself. 

Nor have more genial surroundings and 
influences had the least tendency to wipe 
out this enduring Jewish type. In the 
Fairmount Park in Philadelphia there is 
a grateful and splendid monument reared 
by Jews, and dedicated to the people of 



The Fact of Jesus 13 

the United States — the only nation in 
history that has never lifted persecuting 
hand against them. Yet, amid this 
American civil summer and chance for 
them, the ancestral Jewish type steadily 
persists. 

There can be no more outstanding in- 
stance than the Jew of the thorough-go- 
ing separating, sectionalizing despotism 
of Heredity. 

Bear reverently but steadily in mind the 
fact that this Jesus was Jew ! 

Behold, in addition, the also mightily 
moulding and isolating power of Envi- 
ronment. How largely dependent we 
are for the shape of what we are upon 
environment. You are, to sculpturing de- 
gree, what you are, because you were 
born where you were ; because of the 
companionship amid which you have 
been set ; because of the quality and 
method of the schooling which wrought 
upon your youth ; because of the sort 



14 His Own Person 

of toil, either of brawn or brain, which 
has compelled your manhood. 

And what was the environment of 
this Jesus ? 

Think of the environment of the Na- 
tional Atmosphere of Jesus. Let Dr. 
Edersheim here be our authority. He is 
well qualified to speak. He was Jew be- 
fore he became Christian, was possessed 
of a Rabbi's learning in the curious and 
various lore of his ancestral people. He 
says, ''And what of Judaism itself at that 
period ? It was miserably divided, even 
though no outward separation had taken 
place. The Pharisees and Sadducees held 
opposite principles, and hated each other ; 
the Essenes looked down upon them 
both. Within Pharisaism the schools of 
Hillel and Shammai contradicted each 
other on almost every matter. But both 
insisted in their unbounded contempt of 
what they designated as ' the country 
people ' — those who had no traditional 
learning, and hence were either unable 



The Fact of Jesus 15 

or unwilling to share the discussions, and 
to bear the burdens of legal ordinances, 
which constituted the chief matter of 
traditionalism. There was only one feel- 
ing common to all — high and low, rich 
and poor, learned and unlettered ; it was 
that of intense hatred of the foreigner. 
The rude Galileans were as ^national' as 
the most punctilious Pharisees ; indeed, 
in the war against Rome they furnished 
the most and the bravest soldiers. . . . 
Three days before a heathen festival,'' 
— as demanded by the prevalent Pharisa- 
ism — " all transactions with Gentiles 
were forbidden, so as to afford them nei- 
ther direct nor indirect help toward their 
rites ; and this prohibition extended even 
to private festivities, such as a birth-day, 
the day of return from a journey, etc. 
On heathen festive occasions a pious Jew 
should avoid, if possible, passing through 
a heathen city ; certainly all dealings in 
shops which were festively decorated. It 
was unlawful for Jewish workmen to assist 



1 6 His Own Person 

in anything which might be subservient 
either to heathen worship or heathen 
rule, including in the latter the erection 
of court-houses and similar buildings. 
. . . So terrible was the intolerance, 
that a Jewess was actually forbidden 
to give help to her heathen neighbor, 
when about to become a mother. . . . 
Milk drawn from a cow by heathen 
hands, bread and oil prepared by them, 
might indeed be sold to strangers, but 
not used by Israelites. No pious Jew 
would of* course have sat down at the 
table of a Gentile. If a heathen were 
invited to a Jewish house, he might not 
be left alone in the room, else every 
article of food or drink on the table was 
henceforth to be regarded as unclean. If 
cooking utensils were bought of them, 
they had to be purified by fire or by wa- 
ter, knives to be ground anew, spits to 
be made red hot before use, etc. It was 
not lawful to let either house or field, or 
to sell cattle, to a heathen; any article. 



The Fact of Jesus 17 

however distantly connected with hea- 
thenism, was to be destroyed. Thus, if a 
weaving- shuttle had been made of wood 
grown in a grove devoted to idols, every 
web of cloth made by it was to be de- 
stroyed ; nay, if such pieces had been 
mixed with others, to the manufacture 
of which no possible objection could 
have been taken, these all became un- 
clean, and had to be destroyed/'"^ 

And the Gentiles, and as conquering 
peoples they were numerous in Palestine, 
paid the Jew back heartily in his own 
coin. Jewish worship of an invisible Je- 
hovah, Jewish insistence on the Sabbath 
holiness and rest, Jewish scrupulousness 
about special and unclean meats, the Jew- 
ish badge of circumcision — Jewish laws 
and customs such as these were the con- 
stant causes of antagonisms, gibes, jests on 
the part of Gentiles toward the Jews. 
Though a few wider-minded Gentiles 

* Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christy by 
Rev. Dr. Edersheim, pp. 25-28. 

B 



1 8 His Own Person 

were more tolerant, and though some of 
them, tired of their heathenism and at- 
tracted by the revelation of Jehovah in 
the Jewish Scriptures, even became pros- 
elytes, yet, speaking generally, the bear- 
ing of Gentile to Jew was as hard and 
bitter as was that of Jew to Gentile. 
Probably there never was sharper and 
wider religious hatred than that which 
severed ^nd seared the peoples of Pales- 
tine when Jesus lived and wrought in it. 
Such environment of isolating and ir- 
ritating national and social atmosphere 
wrapped, like a blighting and blinding 
fog, the country of the birth and the toil 
of this Jesus. 

Think of the environment of the Town 
of Jesus. Provincialism was the distin- 
guishing mark of it. It was in no meaning 
metropolitan — with celebrated schools, 
famed temples, cultivated society, com- 
pelling and identifying modes of thought. 

To be sure, the three great roads — the 



The Fact of Jesus 19 

great trade road carrying from Damascus 
the products of the East to Europe ; the 
old war road pushing from Assyria to 
Egypt; the ^'frankincense" road to 
Arabia, intersected each other in Galilee 
and at no far distance from Nazareth, and 
so, perhaps, brought frequently to Naza- 
reth a various influx of peoples, merchants, 
soldiers. But still, Nazareth can, in no 
meaning, be thought of as a town even 
of the metropolitan sort and influence 
of Capernaum, which lay apart from it, 
some nine hours' journey, on the Lake of 
Galilee. 

The preponderance of testimony seems 
to be that the number of the inhabitants 
of Nazareth hardly numbered two thou- 
sand. It had but one fountain, one Syna- 
gogue, one public square. It was, and 
is to-day held in a fold of the great hill 
on which it stretches. There is wide and 
wonderful prospect from the summit of 
the hill on the sheltering breast of which 
the town lies. But the town itself does 



20 His Own Person 

not at all command the prospect. You 
must make a difficult climb upward from 
the town before you can get vision of the 
entrancing view. Nazareth was and is a 
somewhat separated, hidden, on some 
sides, shut away village. It was no place 
for the eddying of world currents. These 
would flow by it, not tarry in it. The 
proverb about it was, "'Can any good 
thing come out of Nazareth?" (John i. 
46). Such was the secluding environment 
of the town of Jesus. 

Think of the environment of the 
Home of Jesus. On a spring day, not 
long since, I rode into the modern town 
of Nazareth in Galilee. Of course there 
is various change in the modern village 
from the ancient place in which stood 
the home of Jesus ; but in that Orient 
changes are laggard, and the lens of the 
to-day is not so clouded by difference 
that, looking through it, you cannot quite 
plainly descry what must have been the 



The Fact of Jesus 21 

long-ago shape and look of things. I 
tarried by the fountain whence the in- 
habitants of the present Nazareth get 
their water supply. Though the build- 
ings surrounding it are modern, it is the 
same large and lavish spring which fur- 
nished water in the time of Jesus. It 
was an old-time scene I saw in the new 
time. While the shadows were length- 
ening toward the evening, there the 
throng of women were, crowding about 
the fountain, at the, in the East, change- 
less woman's duty of getting water for 
the household. Here and there I saw a 
small boy following his mother. The 
mother of Jesus used to dip her great 
earthern jar into that fountain ; with the 
wonderful strong movement with which 
I saw those women doing it, the mother 
of Jesus used to swing the huge jar, 
heavy with water, to her head, and march 
off with it skilfully balanced there. And 
the boy Jesus would follow her, just as 
those boys I saw followed their mothers. 



22 His Own Person 

down the steep hill and along the rough 
and stony street. 

I went into the peasants' houses of to- 
day in Nazareth. This was the sort of 
them — ^just a cube of stone or of sun- 
dried bricks; one room, often window- 
less, with only open door for window ; no 
tables, the floor serving for table, some 
rugs, some beds — pallets rolled up each 
morning and put away until, when night 
comes, they are spread upon the floor of 
the one room — living, working, eating, 
and also sleeping room — unless, in pleas- 
ant weather, the sleeping place be the flat 
house-top. No knives, spoons, forks- — 
fingers and pieces of thin bread doubled 
together do the duty of these ; a chest ; 
an outside earthen oven, common to sev- 
eral families, in which upon heated stones 
baking is done in a rude way. Not un- 
like such home as this must have been the 
home of Jesus. 

But high teaching, and about the loft- 
iest matters, must have gone on in that 



The Fact of Jesus 23 

home of Jesus. In the truest of mean- 
ings it must have been a religious home. 
The one text-book of its teaching was 
the Scriptures of the Old Testament. 
Much of this was learned by heart, and 
it was the steady staple of the household 
devotion. There was the Synagogue 
School too in Nazareth in which Jesus 
must have been pupil. Besides there were 
the Synagogue services every Sabbath. 
Then, when Jesus had reached the age 
of twelve, there were the yearly and vi- 
sion-giving journeys to Jerusalem where 
the splendid temple shone, and the sacri- 
fices smoked, and the venerable and 
stately ritual held its daily course, and the 
great Day of Atonement taught its na- 
tional lessons of Hebrew bondage and 
wonderful Divine release; and where, 
thicker and more clustering than ivy 
matted upon ancient walls, hung multi- 
tudinous and various and precious He- 
brew associations. 

Nor was Jesus the only child in that 



24 His Own Person 

home in Nazareth. I utterly believe 
that, while Jesus had infinitely higher 
paternal parentage than Joseph, after the 
birth of Jesus from His virgin mother, 
children vi^ere born into that home in 
Nazareth of whom Joseph and Mary 
were the parents. And so the teaching 
which results from multiplying household 
life went on in that home in Nazareth. 

Nor should we forget that Jesus must 
have been exquisitely sensitive to the 
natural scenery environing His home. 
His whole- teaching is evidence of this. 
While His was a usual peasant home nest- 
ling within the secluding clasp of the hill 
enfolding Nazareth, a climb to the hill's 
top would make Him centre of a wide 
and rare horizon. Jesus must have often 
made that climb, and swept that horizon, 
spectacular with mountain, plain, and 
far-gleaming sea, with eager eye. And 
lowlier beauties must have arrested and 
entranced Him — the anemones — the lilies 
of the field — gorgeous with gold and pur- 



The Fact of Jesus 25 

pie Solomon could not rival or even reach 
the flashing plumage and sweet songs, and 
happy, trustful, care-free business of the 
birds of heaven. 

Yet, surely, anyone must see that the 
home-environment of Jesus could not 
have been of any w^orld-touching kind ; 
could not, in itself, have much suggested 
truths and ways of thinking which would 
reach forth to and intertwist with the 
manifold mankind ; must have been an 
environment tending to specialness, to 
separateness of thought and life from peo- 
ples who had not shared in the peculiar 
Hebrew, Scriptural ancestral culture. 

Think of the environment of the Toil 
of Jesus. Do not in your imagination 
put perpetual halo round the head of 
Jesus, as the artists, called the great mas- 
ters, do so constantly. Let a picture like 
Holman Hunt's " Shadow of the Cross " 
teach you more truly. To me that is the 
most moving of pictures. I have stood 



26 His Own Person 

in just such a narrow Oriental workshop 
as the picture depicts — indeed, it is the 
one living room of the lowly family, 
among other uses put to the use of work- 
shop. I have seen and handled just such 
rude tools as the artist shows lying about 
and hung upon the walls. Get the vision 
of that great true picture. The beams of 
the setting sun glorify the mean room. 
Here, one end upon a carpenter's horse 
the other end upon the floor, lies a great 
timber which must be fashioned. Jesus, 
wielding adze and stooping, has been thus 
fashioning it. The floor is littered with 
the chips and shavings about His feet. 
Jesus will rest Himself a little, as the 
day's toil is ending. So He unclasps the 
adze, and, straightening Himself, stretches 
out His arms, as would anyone who had 
been for long bending and working, that 
such change of posture may relieve wea- 
riness. And lo, the rays of the setting 
sun, upon the wall behind Him, make, of 
His outstretched arms, the shadow of a 



The Fact of Jesus ttj 

cross. The shadow His mother Mary 
sees, though Jesus does not ; the time for 
the cross for Him has not yet come. 

But, for long years, in that town of 
Nazareth, and at such toil, this Jesus 
wrought. His handicraft clung to Him. 
'' Is not this the carpenter?" they asked 
when He became the public teacher. 
The environment of hard-handed and 
tasking toil was that of Jesus for far the 
larger portion of His life. The environ- 
ment of the carpenter's shop in a poor 
town is not now, even with all our mul- 
tiplicities of books, daily press, swift easy 
intercourse — certainly was not then, emi- 
nently favorable to the maturing of a 
way of thought and speech which should 
at once enlighten and embrace the world. 

Yet, notwithstanding such heredity and 
such environment Jesus stands forth the 
One Universal Man. In Him, and in 
Him only, these great facts and laws of 
heredity and environment find no sec- 
tionalizing and specializing illustration. 



28 His Own Person 

He is the unique, transcendent exception 
to these laws. To Him all flock " as the 
birds do to the summer.'' His is the 
^^ touch of nature which makes the whole 
world kin.'' 

The most diverse intellects find meet- 
ing-place in Him. Shakespeare and Sir 
Isaac Newton adore Him ; and the poor, 
witless fellow, of whom I read, who 
knew no more than 

" I'm a poor sinner, and nothing at all, 
But Jesus Christ is my all and in all " 

— is brother to these colossal intellects 
in Jesus. 

The most differing nationalities find 
refuge in Him — Anglo-Saxon William 
Ewart Gladstone, and the twenty thou- 
sand Chinese Christians who, the other 
year, sealed their devotion to Jesus with 
their blood. 

The dwellers in the most varying zones 
and climates find answer in Jesus. It is 
in New Herrnhut in Greenland. The 



The Fact of Jesus 29 

Moravian John Beck is copying in fair 
clear hand the translation of the Gospels 
into the mean tongue which rules there. 
A company of natives, passing by, w^ait to 
to be told what is in the book. The 
narrative of the agony of Jesus is read 
and explained to them. One of the sav- 
ages, Kaiarnak, starts up and eagerly ex- 
claims, ''How was that? Tell me that 
once more, for I too would fain be saved." 
It is close to the equator. At last William 
Carey's labors have won converts. A 
poor Pariah woman, Joy muni, is telling 
her experience. She has found Jesus 
her ^' Assroy " — that is, the house of 
refuge for those who have forsaken all. 
So is this Jesus binding bridge between 
the dwellers where the cold freezes and 
where the sun pours torrid heats. 

The most opposite temperaments find 
home in Jesus — impetuous Peter, medi- 
tative and mystic John, doubting Thomas, 
fervid and sagacious Paul. 

Besides, " have we ever thought of the 



30 His Own Person 

peculiar position occupied by Jesus with 
respect to the ideals of the sexes? No 
man has ever dared to call Jesus, in any 
opprobrious sense, sexless; yet in character 
He stands above, and, if one may use the 
term, midway between the sexes — His 
comprehensive humanity is a veritable 
storehouse of the ideals we associate with 
both the sexes. No woman has ever had 
any more difficulty than men have had in 
finding in Him the fulfillment of the 
ideal. ' ' As Bishop Westcott says, ' ' What- 
ever there is^in men, of strength, justice, 
and wisdom ; whatever there is in woman, 
of sensibility, purity and insight, is in 
Christ without the conditions which hin- 
der among us the development of con- 
trasted virtues in one person.''"^ 

In the Museum in Haarlem in Hol- 
land, I waited long before a picture by 
a great Dutch artist, of Christ Blessing 
the Children. And the face of the Christ 

* The Unive7'sality of Jesus ^ by Rev. G. A. Johnston Ross, 
M. A. p. 15. 



The Fact of Jesus 31 

had a Dutch look, and His robes were of 
the Dutch fashion, and they were plainly 
Dutch mothers who were bringing little 
Dutch children to a Christ whose features 
were not foreign to them. The Italian 
Raphael gives the Jesus he paints the look 
of Italy, and it is beneath those sunny 
skies he places Him. The Russian 
Vereshtchagin cannot keep out Russian 
characteristics as he paints the Christ. 
Nor need he. For the one Christ is 
open-hearted for and inclusive of Dutch, 
Italian, Russian, Anglo-Saxon, old hemi- 
sphere, new hemisphere, old time, new 
time. Jesus is the one universal man in 
deep close kinship with all the men of all 
the times and all the climes. As another 
has so finely and truly said, '' He stretched 
His arms out upon the cross that He 
might embrace the world." 

///. The Teachings of Jesus 

At the close of the hidden years in 
Nazareth, this Jesus '' suddenly emerges 



32 His Own Person 

into fame as the most daring religious 
thinker of His time. He speaks out of 
the fulness of a mind profound, original 
and devout. He commands horizons of 
thought and aspiration undreamed of by 
the Jew. The greatest religious think- 
ers of His day pale before His new-risen 
splendors/"^ 

And not only is this Jesus the greatest 
teacher of His own time, but of all the 
times preceding His, and of all the times 
succeeding. That His teachings are the 
loftiest the world has known is the wide 
and various confession. And so peculiar 
are the teachings of this Jesus, in their 
vital and vitalizing freshness, that they 
are as applicable and commanding in this 
twentieth century as they were when, in 
the long ago, He first enunciated them. 
Well does one exclaim, '' In the culture 
of the past, Thou, Christ, art the only 
modern ! '' 

But while so lofty, they are too ideal 

* The Life of Christy by William J. Dawson, p. 31. 



The Fact of Jesus 33 

and impracticable — is the not unusual 
criticism of the teachings of Jesus by the 
busy and pushing man of the street. 

Is that a just criticism ? Does the ac- 
knowledged loftiness of the teachings of 
Jesus really resolve them into an -aerial 
mist of impracticability? ^^Yes/' many 
say, " That teaching of Jesus about the 
smitten cheek, for example, is a teaching 
so lofty that it is impracticable/' 

But, interpret the teaching of Jesus by 
the example of Jesus. 

There, before the gray of the morning, 
Jesus stands undergoing illegal prelimi- 
nary examination by Annas, the ex-high 
priest. Annas is set on the destruction of 
Jesus. He will trap Jesus into some un- 
wary admission, if he can. Annas begins 
illegally questioning Jesus about His 
teachings. Jesus will maintain His right 
to legal investigation. He will demand 
definite charge, substantiated by witnesses. 
He replies — in temple, in synagogue, in 
the open. He has taught publicly. '' Ask 
c 



34 His Own Person 

them that heard me ; behold, they know 
what I said/' is His calm answer. Then 
an utmost indignity is visited upon Jesus. 
An attendant of the ex-high priest, and 
altogether illegally, smites Jesus with 
the palm of his hand. Did Jesus turn 
the other cheek for further smiting? 
Rather, with serene self-control. He 
simply said " If I have spoken evil, bear 
witness of the evil ; but if well, why 
smitest thou me ? " Really, that com- 
mand about the smitten cheek is a com- 
mand, condensed into a proverb, against 
vengeful retaliation. That is not im- 
practicable. Nothing is nobler than a 
steady self-control amid irritations and 
injuries. And that is both practicable 
and possible. 

But, the usual man of the street says, 
^^That command of Jesus about love to 
one's enemies — ' But I say unto you. 
Love your enemies, bless them that 
curse you, do good to them that hate 
you, and pray for them which despite- 



The Fact of Jesus 35 

fully use you and persecute you ' — surely, 
that command is impracticable." 

But, interpret this teaching of Jesus 
by the further word of Jesus. Jesus 
goes on — " That ye may be the children 
of your Father which is in Heaven : for 
He maketh His sun to rise on the evil 
and on the good, and sendeth rain on the 
just and on the unjust." The Father 
in Heaven does not love the unjust in 
the same way in which He loves the 
just. He could not be the Father in 
Heaven if He did. He loves the just 
with the love of complacency. He can- 
not love the unjust thus. But He can 
and does love them with the love of 
benevolence. He sends benevolently 
His sun and rain even on the unjust. 
Thus we are to love our enemies — if we 
have them. You are not asked to be 
complacent toward the evil to which 
their enmity to you has prompted your 
enemies. But it is demanded of you 
that you be benevolently gracious with 



36 His Own Person 

kindness even to your enemies ; that 
even upon your enemies you be willing 
to lavish service. That is not imprac- 
ticable. 

But, many say, "'That clause in the 
prayer which Jesus taught about forgiv- 
ing our debtors is certainly impracti- 
cable." And it is never to be forgotten 
that Jesus singles that clause out for 
special and explanatory commentary, as 
He does no other — '' For if ye forgive 
men their trespasses, your Heavenly 
Father will also forgive you ; but if ye 
forgive not men their trespasses, neither 
will your Father forgive your tres- 
passes." 

But, how does our Father in Heaven 
forgive ? Upon repentance. Give heed 
now to these other and interpreting 
words of Jesus. "'Take heed to your- 
selves ; if thy brother trespass against 
thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, 
forgive him. And if he trespass against 
thee seven times in a day, and seven 



The Fact of Jesus 37 

times in a day turn again to thee, saying 
I repent, thou shalt forgive him." No, 
you are not just indiscriminately and 
carelessly to forgive. But you are to be 
in such constant mood toward the one 
injuring you, that you shall be instant 
and complete in forgiveness, no matter 
how many times you may have been 
wronged, the moment he repentingly 
turns toward you. That is not imprac- 
ticable.* 

No. The teachings of Jesus are not 
impracticable. They are exceptional in 
these two regards — they are both the 
loftiest teachings, and the most singu- 
larly and nobly practicable. Were the 
teachings of Jesus but practised, as they 
should be, in homes, on street, in mart, 
in church, the millennium had come. 
In just the proportion in which they are 

* See this whole matter of the practicability of the teach- 
ings of Jesus admirably discussed by Dr. John A. Broadus in 
his lectures " Jesus of Nazareth," dehvered before the Johns 
Hopkins University. 



2^S His Own Person 

getting practised is the old world swing- 
ing into the better sunlight. 

Some years since Sir Edwin Arnold, 
the distinguished poet, and author of 
The Light of Asia^ and Dr. William 
Ashmore of China, the heroic and re- 
nowned American Missionary, met each 
other on a Pacific steamship. '' I have 
been criticised,'' said Sir Edwin Arnold 
to Dr. Ashmore, '" for an implied com- 
parison between Buddhism and Chris- 
tianity in regard to the doctrines derived 
from thern and the principles contained 
in them respectively. No such object 
was in my mind. For me, Christianity, 
rightly viewed, is the crowned queen of 
religions, and immensely superior to 
every other ; and though I am so great an 
admirer of much that is great in Hindu 
philosophy and religion, I would not give 
one verse of the Sermon on the Mount 
away for twenty Epic poems like the Ma- 
habharata, nor exchange the Golden 
Rule for twenty new Upanishads." 



The Fact of Jesus 39 

Give attention to the Tremorless Cer- 
tainty of the teachings of this Jesus. His 
teachings throw their circle round the 
most awful and transcendent matters — 
the deepest facts of human destiny, the 
unseen and by every living man unvisited 
and unknown other world, the being 
and character of God and His relation to 
this world. Yet, in all the teachings of 
this Jesus there is the unwavering calm- 
ness of the most certain knowledge. 
In His teachings there are no guesses, 
no difficult and labored reasonings, no 
surmisings, no doubtful balancings of 
probabilities. This Jesus speaks, as the 
sun shines, with the positiveness and 
authority of self-announcing light. 

Here is Socrates, on trial for his life, 
saying to the Athenians, '' Or perhaps do 
I differ from most other men in this, and 
if I am wiser at all than any one, am I 
wiser in this, that while not possessing 
any exact knowledge of the state of mat- 
ters in Hades, I do not imagine that I pos- 



40 His Own Person 

sess such knowledge/' Here is Socrates 
again, under sentence of death, talking to 
his friends just before he drank the hem- 
lock — ^^ Well, friends, we have been dis- 
coursing for this last hour on the immor- 
tality of the soul, and there are many 
points about that matter on which he 
were a bold man who should readily dog- 
matize." At best, this is the language 
of half-knowledge, of cautious reasoning, 
finding stepping-stones with difficulty, of 
hint and misty hope. The difference 
between a rush-light flickering in the 
midnight and the June sun at noon, is the 
difference between such vague conjec- 
tures of this greatest of merely human 
teachers, and the tranquil, effulgent af- 
firmation of this Jesus — '' Let not your 
heart be troubled ; in my Father's house 
are many mansions : I go to prepare a 
place for you '' ; or that announcement, 
amid the death-shadows, to the penitent 
thief upon the cross — '' To-day shalt thou 
be with me in Paradise." 



The Fact of Jesus 41 

So this Jesus speaks to men in all direc- 
tions with this unwavering certainty. He 
does not, voyaging after it, discover truth 
for men ; He discloses truth to men as 
from the fulness of a perfect self-posses- 
sion of the truth. Sin, forgiveness, provi- 
dence, prayer, immortality — of these, 
and of other tremendous themes as 
vast as these. He utters Himself with 
no wearying and disturbing doubtful- 
ness. 

I stood once on Mount Washington 
and beheld the rising of the sun. At first 
nothing could be seen ; then, in the ear- 
liest gray of the morning, whelming bil- 
lows of rolling mists; then, as the sun 
advanced, his beams cleared mists and 
darkness utterly away, and every moun- 
tain stood forth revealed, and each nest- 
ling valley was made evident. In such 
questionless and victorious radiance do 
truths stand out, concerning which men 
for ages had sought vision vainly, when 
this Jesus speaks. 



42 His Own Person 

Think further, of how the Predictive 
Element in the teachings of this Jesus has 
been verified. Take but a single instance. 
The temple of Jesus' time, Herod's re- 
built temple, probably outshone even Sol- 
omon's first temple. For nearly fifty 
years they lavished toil and treasure on it. 
Says Josephus of this temple — and he saw 
it in its rare radiance, '' The temple ap- 
peared to strangers, when they were com- 
ing to it at a distance, like a mountain 
covered with snow ; for as to those parts 
of it which were not gilt, they were ex- 
ceeding white. With respect to its out- 
ward face the temple wanted nothing in 
its front that was likely to surprise either 
men's minds or their eyes ; for it was 
covered all over with plates of gold of 
great weight, and, at the first rising of the 
sun, reflected back a fiery splendor." 

Said the disciples, and surely with an 
unblame worthy Jewish pride, " Master, 
see what manner of stones and what 
buildings are here ! " "" And Jesus an- 



The Fact of Jesus 43 

swering said, Seest thou these great 
buildings ? There shall not be left one 
stone upon another that shall not be 
thrown down" (Mark xiii. 1-2). And 
at another time, with more particulariz- 
ing prophecy, Jesus said of that Jeru- 
salem and of that shining and vast tem- 
ple which was its chief glory, ''For the 
days shall come upon thee, that thine 
enemies shall cast a trench about thee, 
and compass thee round, and keep thee 
in on every side, and shall lay thee even 
with the ground, and thy children within 
thee ; and they shall not leave in thee 
one stone upon another ; because thou 
knewest not the time of thy visitation" 
(Luke xix. 43, 44). 

Precisely, and within forty brief years, 
what Jesus predictively said should be 
the destiny of that Jerusalem and of that 
huge temple rising proudly amidst its 
temple-area, was its destiny. The 
most awful event in human history — the 
cataclysmic and enormous significance of 



44 His Own Person 

which does not begin to bulk enough in 
our modern thought of it— did take place 
under the Roman Titus. As Dean Mil- 
man tells of it, '' Of all the stately city — the 
populous streets, the places of the Jewish 
kings, the fortresses of her warriors, the 
Temple of her God — not a ruin re- 
mained, except the tall towers of Phasae- 
lis, Mariamne, and Hippicus, and part of 
the western wall, which was left as a de- 
fense for the Roman camp/' And, 
through the centuries since, though 
other Jerusalems have risen upon the 
ruins of that ancient one, though the 
Jerusalem Jesus saw is buried from 
thirty to a hundred feet below the Jeru- 
salem one to-day looks at, that temple- 
area, the only portion not so buried, 
has remained as cleanly swept of any 
Jewish temple, or even synagogue, as it 
was cleanly swept by the fire and the 
slaughter of that Roman destruction. 

As I sat, not so long ago, upon the 
Mount of Olives, and looked upon that 



The Fact of Jesus 45 

temple-area, lying there beneath me, 
and thought of the predictive words of 
Jesus about that resplendent temple 
which once stood so firmly and so 
grandly amid that area — as I saw, with 
my own eyes, how every least predictive 
word of Jesus about it all had come to 
such exact fulfillment, the granitic cer- 
tainty of the words of Jesus rose before 
me as the mountains rise. I said to myself 
— and how could I help saying it ? — as, in 
this immense instance, the predictive 
words of Jesus have turned out to be so 
precisely true, so in all other directions 
shall the predictive words of Jesus, 
whether toward the dark or toward the 
bright, exactly culminate. Here is cer- 
tainty. 

IV ^ The Astounding Claims of Jesus 

Preexistence. — This Jesus claimed His 
descent from a nobler and higher place 
and sort of being into this lowlier. He 
asserts that He came down from Heaven 



46 His Own Person 

— ^' For I am come down from Heaven " 
(John vi. 38). He affirms Himself spe- 
cially sent of God — '^ Jesus said unto 
them, If God were your Father, ye 
would love me ; for I came forth and 
am come from God ; for neither have I 
come of myself, but He sent me '' (John 
viii. 42). He dares to avouch an existence 
personal and actual before the presence 
of Abraham on the earth, though only 
the bloom of a young manhood mantles 
His cheek and brow. '' Verily, verily, I 
say unto you, before Abraham was born, 
I am '' (John viii. 58). The solemnities 
of the farewell to the disciples are shadow- 
ing ; the awful cross is looming ; the sanc- 
tities of the last High-Priestly prayer 
for the disciples are casting holy spell — 
surely, if there ever were place and time 
for searching sincerity they are these — 
yet, unfalteringly. His prayer insists on 
an antecedent glory. '^ And now. Father, 
glorify Thou me with Thine Own 
Self, with the glory which I had with 



The Fact of Jesus 47 

Thee before the world was '' (John 
xvii. 5). 

The Fulfilment in Himself of all 
previous and long-timed Prophecy and 
Ritual — this Jesus claimed. Recall that 
scene in the Synagogue at Nazareth. 
Jesus is asked to read the appointed pro- 
phetic portion for the day. The roll of 
the prophecy of Isaiah is handed Him. 
It is thus He reads : 

'^ The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 

Because He anointed me to preach good tidings 

to the poor; 
He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, 
And recovering of sight to the blind, 
To set at liberty them that are bruised. 
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." 

The reading done, this is His announce- 
ment — '' To-day hath this Scripture been 
fulfilled in your ears" (Luke iv. 18-21). 
Mark that other word, equally challeng- 
ing and positive, from the Sermon on the 



48 His Own Person 

Mount — '^ Think not that I came to de- 
stroy the law and the prophets — I came 
not to destroy, but to fulfill '' (Matt. v. 17). 
Hear also these almost closing words of 
the earthly life of this Jesus — '' All things 
must needs be fulfilled which are written 
in the law of Moses, and the prophets, 
and the psalms, concerning me'' (Luke 
xxiv. 44). 

" Consider, now, how great this Person 
was, at least in His own consciousness, 
who felt that He was the end aimed at 
in the very existence of the true religion 
in the world. It was for me. He vir- 
tually said, that God called Abraham, 
Isaac and Jacob ; for me that He led 
Israel out of Egypt and gave them laws 
by Moses, and read the lessons of history 
and adumbrated the future by the proph- 
ets ; it is for me that the whole course 
of God's providence and redemption has 
been working through the ages ; all these 
laws, prophecies, institutions, catastro- 
phies, deliverances, revelations, are justi- 



The Fact of Jesus 49 

fied — they are shown to have a Divine 
right to exist — because they end in me. 
Consider how great a claim is involved 
here, and how unique. 



>> ^ 



The Right and Power to Forgive Sins 
— this Jesus claims. Take but one in- 
stance. See him there, poor fellow. 
Paralysis has smitten him — the implica- 
tion seems to be he has brought it on him- 
self by dissipation. He must be carried 
on his bed — perhaps a padded quilt, per- 
haps a grabbatus (a slight low frame, 
corded), on which is a mattress on which 
the sick man is lying. Four friends, each 
tugging at a corner of that on which he 
lies, are bringing the paralytic ; Jesus dis- 
cerns faith, both in the smitten man and 
in the four assisting friends. To their 
faith Jesus thus replies, " Son, thy sins be 
forgiven thee.'' No wonder those about 
thought blasphemy had been spoken, 

* Studies in Theology^ by Dr. James Denney, lectures deliv- 
ered in Chicago Theological Seminary, pp. 27, 28. 

D 



50 His Own Person 

and reasoned in their hearts — ^' Who can 
forgive sins but God only?'' But not 
one whit does Jesus lessen His claim. 
And, though at this point in our argu- 
ment we may not speak of miracles, it is 
to be noted that it is the record that Jesus 
instantly does a mighty work of physical 
healing on the smitten man to substan- 
tiate both His right to and His ability 
for the immense prerogative of the for- 
giveness of sins (Mark ii. 1-12). 

Utmost^ Questionless, Supreme Alle- 
giance to Himself — also this Jesus claims. 
And, among others, in these three par- 
ticulars. 

In the particular of making Himself 
the summation and illustration of His 
teaching and demanding that He always 
is to be reckoned such. Contrast the 
method of Jesus here with that of other 
teachers whom the world calls great. 
They point from themselves to their 
doctrine. Jesus makes Himself the 



The Fact of Jesus 51 

centre of His doctrine, as the sun makes 
itself the centre of the day. The great 
Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, is 
speaking with his disciple Ananda. 
Thus he speaks — '' The Perfect/' that is, 
the Buddha, ''thinks not that it is he 
who should lead the brotherhood, or 
that the order is dependent upon him. 
Why then should he leave instructions in 
any matter concerning the order ? . . . 
Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps unto 
yourselves. Be ye a refuge to yourselves. 
Betake yourself to no external refuge. 
. . . And whosoever, Ananda, either 
now or after I am dead, shall be a lamp 
unto themselves, and a refuge unto them- 
selves, shall betake themselves to no exter- 
nal refuge, but holding fast to the truth 
as their lamp, shall look not for refuge to 
any one besides themselves . . . it is 
they, Ananda, who shall reach the top- 
most height.''* But what does Jesus 

* Quoted in The Incarnation of the Son of God^ by Charles 
Gore, M. A., pp. 8, 9. 



52 His Own Person 

say ? '* Him that cometh to Me I will in 
no wise cast out '' (John vi. 37). '^ Come 
unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy- 
laden, and I will give you rest '' (Matt. xi. 
28)- " I am the resurrection and the life '' 
(John xi. 25). "' I am the way and the 
truth and the life '' (John xiv. 6). '' He 
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father ; 
and how say est thou then. Show us the 
Father?" ^^ Follow thou Me" (John 
xiv. 9; xxi. 22). How majestic, and 
wreathed with isolating claim is this im- 
perial ME of Jesus. 

In the particular of an allegiance to 
Himself so superlative that all treasure of 
mind, heart, will, shall be but dust of the 
balance when weighed with it, this Jesus 
makes claim. That tragic story of Per- 
petua— scarcely beyond twenty, with her 
babe at her breast, with white-haired 
father and youthful husband mingling 
their implorations that she- forswear her 
allegiance to this Jesus ; her sublime and 



The Fact of Jesus 53 

calm refusal ; then her fair limbs gashed 
and torn by the lions in the arena ; and 
her babe motherless ; and her husband 
wifeless, and her aged father childless ! 
But the young martyr, Perpetua, only 
recognized and submitted to the inexora- 
ble claim of this Jesus who said — " He 
that loveth father or mother more than 
Me is not worthy of Me ; and he that 
loveth son or daughter more than Me is 
not worthy of Me. And he that doth 
not take his cross and follow after Me is 
not worthy of Me " (Matt, x. 37, 38). 

In the particular that, in the concep- 
tion of this Jesus, His own claims of a 
supreme allegiance to Himself do not at 
all clash with the overshadowing claims 
of Jehovah. Again and again this Jesus 
asserts that the unvarying heart and pith 
of the commandments of the awful Jeho- 
vah are an unrelaxing and overtopping 
devotion to Jehovah. To one asking 
Him, ^* Master, which is the great com- 



54 H^^ Own Person 

mandment in the law?'' this Jesus re- 
plies, ^^Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy mind. This is the 
great and first commandment" (Matt, 
xxii. 37, 38). Yet, the singular and note- 
worthy thing about the insistence by this 
Jesus upon such rightful overruling devo- 
tion to Jehovah is, that it is not at all in- 
terfered with by His own claim of an 
equally including and over-mastering de- 
votion to Himself. ''Thou shalt have 
no other gods before Me'' (Ex. xx. 3), 
is the stern and separating command at 
Sinai. But, in the thought of this Jesus, 
to claim for Himself the whole wealth of 
a human soul is not to divert that soul 
from obedience to the command of Sinai, 
is not to summon that soul into the com- 
mission of idolatry. Was ever claim more 
colossal ? 

Concerning the whole matter of this 
claim of Jesus to a limitless personal al- 
legiance, Didon, the French theologian, 



The Fact of Jesus 55 

has finely and truly said, " The believer 
no longer belongs to himself; he re- 
nounces his own thoughts, his own in- 
terests, his own initiative ; everything, in 
short, and belongs without reserve to 
Him in whom he believes. He dies to 
himself in order to live morally in an- 
other ; he exchanges his own life for the 
life of another. No one but God has the 
right to demand absolute faith ; for every 
man has his errors, his faults, his imper- 
fections, and in abdicating before a man, 
one would become the slave of this man's 
weaknesses. Jesus claimed this com- 
plete faith, — a sign that He claimed the 
prerogative of God."^ 

And the relation to practical life of 
submission to such claim of this Jesus, 
one has well sung : 

Three little words, but full of tenderest meaning ; 

Three little words the heart can scarcely hold ; 
Three little words, but on their import dwelling, 

What wealth of love their syllables unfold ! 

* Quoted in Studies in Theology^ by Dr. James Denney, p. 30. 



56 His Own Person 

" For my sake " cheer the sufFering, help the needy ; 

On earth this was my work ; I give it thee. 
If thou wouldst follow in thy Master's footsteps, 

Take up my cross and come and learn of me. 

^' For my sake " let the harsh word die unuttered 
That trembles on the swift, impetuous tongue; 

" For my sake " check the quick, rebellious feeling 
That rises when thy brother does thee wrong. 

'' For my sake " press with steadfast patience 
onward, 

Although the race be hard, the battle long. 
Within my Father's house are many mansions; 

There thou shalt rest and join the victor's song. 

And if in coming days the world revile thee. 
If " for my sake " thou suffer pain and loss. 

Bear on, faint heart ; thy Master went before thee ; 
They only wear His crown who share His cross. 

Nor is the vast and culminating future 
beyond the scope of the claim of this 
Jesus. That '' far off, divine event to- 
ward which the whole creation moves " 
He is not only to have a hand in, but He 
is Himself to be both its cause and centre. 



The Fact of Jesus 57 

At the world's final judgment He is to be 
absolute adjudicator. This Galilean Peas- 
ant dares declare — and the unwonted 
thing about it is that the expectant world 
has not esteemed the declaration an in- 
sanity — ^^When the Son of Man shall 
come in His glory, and all the angels with 
Him, then shall He sit on the throne of 
His glory : and before Him shall be 
gathered all the nations : and He shall 
separate them one from another, as the 
shepherd separateth the sheep from the 
goats : and He shall set the sheep on His 
right hand, but the goats on the left. 
Then shall the King say unto them on 
His right hand. Come, ye blessed of My 
Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
for you from the foundation of the 
world : for I was an hungered, and ye 
gave Me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave 
Me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took 
Me in ; naked, and ye clothed Me : I 
was sick, and ye visited Me : I was in 
prison, and ye came unto Me. Then 



58 His Own Person 

shall the righteous answer Him, saying. 
Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, 
and fed Thee ? or athirst, and gave Thee 
drink? And when saw we Thee a 
stranger, and took Thee in ? or naked, 
and clothed Thee ? And when saw we 
Thee sick, or in prison, and came unto 
Thee ? And the King shall answer and 
say unto them. Verily I say unto you, In- 
asmuch as ye did it unto one of these My 
brethren, even these least, ye did it unto 
Me. Then shall He say also unto them 
on the left hand. Depart from Me, ye 
cursed, into the eternal fire which is pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels : for I 
was an hungered, and ye gave Me no 
meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no 
drink : I was a stranger, and ye took Me 
not in ; naked, and ye clothed Me not ; 
sick, and in prison, and ye visited Me 
not. Then shall they also answer, say- 
ing. Lord, w^hen saw we Thee an hun- 
gered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, 
or sick, or in prison, and did not minister 



The Fact of Jesus 59 

unto Thee ? Then shall He answer 
them, saying, Verily I say unto you, In- 
asmuch as ye did it not unto one of these 
least, ye did it not unto Me. And these 
shall go away into eternal punishment : 
but the righteous into eternal life." 
(Matt. XXV. 31-46). 

V. The Sinlessness of Jesus 

Writing autobiographically and forcing 
his memory back into his earliest days, 
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes says — '' The 
first unequivocal act of wrong that has 
left its trace in my memory was this ; 
refusing a small favor asked of me — 
nothing more than telling what had hap- 
pened at school one morning. No mat- 
ter who asked it ; but there were cir- 
cumstances which saddened and awed 
me. I had no heart to speak ; I faltered 
some miserable, perhaps petulant excuse, 
stole away, and the first battle of life was 
lost. What remorse followed I need not 
tell. Then and there, to the best of my 



6o His Own Person 

knowledge, I first consciously took sin 
by the hand and turned my back on 
duty. Time has led me to look upon 
my offence more leniently. Yet if I 
had but won that first battle ! " 

How widely self -revealing is this con- 
fession ! Who, of all the world's mil- 
lions must not make confession some- 
what similar ? Conscious sinning darkens 
over every one. The confession of the 
prophet is the confession of the race, 
'' all we like sheep have gone astray, we 
have turned everyone to his own way.'' 
This consciousness of sin is not a mere 
unhappiness. It wears deeper shades. 
It is a feeling, in a certain sense, of crimi- 
nality. I have not done what I ought, 
and I am therefore wrong, is the univer- 
sal self-certainty. And this conscious- 
ness of guilt because of sin is wholly 
involuntary. Man cannot help it. It 
follows from thoughtful sight of the 
sins which one has done, as inevitably as 
the flash follows the touch of match to 



The Fact of Jesus 6i 

gunpowder. Man does not want to feel 
criminal ; but, seeing his sin, he cannot 
help it. It is the organic reaction of his 
conscience against himself. 

" Not e'en the dearest heart, and next our own, 
Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh." 

And on the side of our sin we should 
not want the reasons of our sighing 
known. ^' Thus conscience doth make 
cowards of us all." Instinctively we hide 
ourselves — the purest of us. When a 
man truly thinks of himself, the difference 
between what conscience tells him he 
ought to be, and what he knows he is, is 
so tremendous that no man could stand 
the gleam of a full human vision even, 
into his soul's depths. '^ For if our 
heart condemn us, God is greater than 
our heart, and knoweth all things '' 
(1 John iii. 20). Man is more than un- 
happy because of sin ; he is consciously 
criminal because of it. 

Nor, can a man reason the conscious- 



62 His Own Person 

ness of being criminal away. When the 
Merrimac fought the Monitor, the balls 
of the Merrimac struck the Monitor fair 
and square, yet they fell harmlessly from 
her sides, and the Monitor scarcely shiv- 
ered. And even though one send a 
Merrimac of reasoning like this to fight 
for him — though he say to himself, 
'' Yes, I know I have sinned ; but I was 
born with a sinful nature, and this sin of 
mine is but the appropriate result and 
fruitage of my nature, therefore, I am 
not blameworthy'' — though a man take 
this huge ball, there on the Merrimac of 
his reasoning, and fire it square and 
straight at this Monitor of his feeling of 
criminality for sin, he cannot make this 
Monitor even shiver, much less strike its 
flag. Still the consciousness stays — '^ nev- 
ertheless I am sinner ; nevertheless I am 
criminal ; nevertheless I have, by my 
own will, changed this inherited evil 
tendency into actual sin, and so I am 
criminal/' 



The Fact of Jesus 63 

Nor, can a man excuse away this crim- 
inal consciousness, even though his sin 
were wrought, in a manner, unwittingly. 
How sad a life was that of the great 
Coleridge ; how tormented with remorse 
because of an overmastering sin. Yet 
how, almost innocently, did he come 
under its slavery. In his childhood he 
fell asleep, one day, upon the margin of 
a stream. He slept on into the darkness. 
The night was stormy. He was found 
chilled through and through. That 
night's sleep caused chronic rheumatism. 
In his early manhood he was anguished 
with it. Opium was prescribed for him. 
It gave him temporary relief. He kept 
on taking it. Soon it manacled him. 
Then it began its awful destruction in 
him. Then it wrecked him. But, not- 
withstanding the way of his entrance into 
the thralldom of opium, he could not 
excuse away his feeling of dark and real 
criminality because of it. He says — ^^ I 
have learned what a sin is against an im- 



64 His Own Person 

perishable being such as is the soul of 
man. I have had more than a glimpse of 
what is meant by death, and outer dark- 
ness, and the worm that dieth not. Be- 
fore God I cannot lift up my eyelids." 
So does this consciousness of being 
criminal, because of sin, remain. It will 
not out. And so this consciousness fills 
man with moral fear toward God ; makes 
life shrouded ; death terrible ; sends a 
man, as it sent Adam, into the shade of 
any sheltering tree when God comes 
walking in His garden. Even though 
men may deny the fact of sin and the 
guilt of sin, they confess it by their ac- 
tions. I have read somewhere that 
though Voltaire denied the existence of 
the devil, he always acted as if he greatly 
feared him, — that is, as if he felt his guilt 
and was afraid of retribution. 

Now the effulgent fact about this Jesus 
is, that He is never shadowed by this 
world-wide consciousness of sin, nor has 



The Fact of Jesus 65 

He ever any remorse, or even regret, be- 
cause of it. 

Behold, what searching tests the sin- 
lessness of this Jesus stands. For ex- 
ample, it stands the test of intimacy. 
That intimacy is the disclosure of sinful- 
ness is too sadly evident in our usual hu- 
man nature. Men are like mountains. 
On the edge of the horizon you do not 
see them as they are. There are the 
kindly ministrations of the mists, the 
tender and hindering veils of blue, the 
rounded smoothings of the gentle hand 
of distance. But as you approach, the 
mists and the distance may no more in- 
terpose their shadowy help ; the truth of 
jagged brow, of precipice, of rent and 
chasm is discovered. Thus it is with a 
man. The proverb is but too truthful — 
'^ No man is a hero to his own valet.'' 
When you are far from a man, especially 
if all his wrongs and roughness are soft- 
ened and smoothed by the subduing mists 
of some mighty service, he is glorified to 



66 His Own Person 

you. But when intimacy has brought 
you near, the rents and crags of character 
too evidently appear. But how easily the 
character of Jesus endures this test of the 
closest intimacy. They are His disciples 
who have sketched His portrait — and St. 
John, he who knew Jesus best, who 
leaned upon His bosom, to whom Jesus 
opened His own heart the widest and the 
oftenest, is the one who is the most in- 
sistent upon the flawlessness of his Master. 

The sinlessness of Jesus stands also the 
test of enmity. Consider what prompted 
elders, chief priests, scribes, to arrest and 
arraign Jesus ; love of power — since if 
the teachings of Jesus should gain sway, 
the pillars of their supremacy must fall ; 
peculiar vengefulness — since in Jesus they 
saw an incarnate and righteous hostility 
to their pretences. Besides, the life of 
Jesus was a most public one. He 
preached openly in field, synagogue, 
temple ; He had no secret methods. As 



The Fact of Jesus 67 

dogs hunt prey, so up and down this life 
of Jesus did scribe and Pharisee pass with 
quick-scented scrutiny. They were keen- 
eyed, but upon the burnished brightness 
of that Hfe they could detect no particle 
of even the dust of sinfulness. It was by 
false witness only they could bring Him 
to His death. 

There is this further signal fact. Judas 
has received his price, betrayed his Mas- 
ter, and now the Master is condemned to 
death. Then horrors seize the soul of 
Judas ; the scorpions of conscience sting 
him into agony ; the money is flung back 
to those who paid it. How, in such case, 
does the heart variously turn itself that it 
may find some excuse or, at least, pallia- 
tion for its crime. How does it clutch, 
as drowning men at straws, at any smallest 
plea which may float it above the whelm- 
ing sea of its remorse. What balm to 
Judas then, the memory of any slight 
fault, marring the character of Jesus, that 



68 His Own Person 

thus there might be furnished him some 
even flimsy excuse for his perfidy. But 
the wail of Judas was, as his unappeasing 
torture drove him to the wild death of 
the suicide, "' I have sinned in that I have 
betrayed the innocent blood." 

Also, most wonderful of all, the 
sinlessness of Jesus stands the test of 
His own assumption of sinlessness. 
" Which of you convicteth Me of sin ? " 
(John viii. 46) — is the unquivering chal- 
lenge of this Jesus. What infinite dan- 
ger in such challenge ! What divine 
daring ! How easy to see spots upon the 
sun ! But the sinless life of Jesus easily 
and triumphantly carries this heaviest and 
most dangerous of assumptions. Re- 
pentance does not cloud this life. Nor 
does even so much as a backward look- 
ing regret once shadow it. Without one 
tear of penitence, one sigh of contrition, 
one even faintest cry for forgiveness, the 
stainless life moves on unfalteringly until, 



The Fact of Jesus 69 

confronting its earthly end, Jesus dare 
declare, "' I have glorified Thee on earth : 
I have finished the work which Thou 
gavest Me to do " (John xvii. 4). 

Did you ever notice how the prayers of 
Jesus also assert His sinlessness ? It is a 
fact, not sufficiently taken account of 
hitherto, that Jesus, in the matter of 
praying, steadily held Himself in a marked 
aloofness. Jesus prayed much, in lonely 
vigil, before every turn and crisis of His 
life, for His disciples, sometimes in their 
presence, but never with them. The 
prayers of Jesus were always prayers 
apart. I do not think an instance can be 
found in which Jesus is represented as 
sharing His prayers with others. ^^ And 
it came to pass, that, as He was praying 
in a certain place^, when He ceased, one 
of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, 
teach us to pray, as John also taught his 
disciples. And He said unto them. 
When ye pray, say" — (Luke xi. 1-5), and 



70 His Own Person 

thus the familiar Lord's prayer is taught, 
beginning with the cry to our Father in 
Heaven, and going on with various peti- 
tions, particularly including the petition 
for the forgiveness of sins. But mark 
well that '' when ye pray." This prayer 
is for the disciples ; it is not for Jesus. 
This Jesus has no sins for which to crave 
forgiveness. How significant of the sin- 
lessness of Jesus — this apartness of the 
prayers of Jesus. 

Here then is this phenomenon of the 
sinlessness of Jesus. It is alone. It is 
the single island in the boundless ocean 
of human sinning. Where the race has 
failed, this Jesus triumphs. 

Let Dr. Horace Bushnell speak a mo- 
ment, in his wonderfully graphic way — 
^^This one perfect character has come 
into our world, and lived in it, filling all 
the molds of action, all the terms of duty 
and love, with His own divine man- 



The Fact of Jesus 71 

ners, works, and charities. . . . The 
world itself is changed, and is no more 
the same that it was ; it has never been 
the same since Jesus left it. The air is 
charged with heavenly odors, and a kind 
of celestial consciousness, a sense of other 
worlds, is wafted on us in its breath. Let 
the dark ages come^, let society roll back- 
ward, and churches perish in whole re- 
gions in the earth, . . . still there is | 
a something here that was not, and a \ 
something that has immortality in it. ( 
. . . It were easier to untwist all the \ 
beams of light in the sky, separating and 
expunging one of the colors, than to get 
the character of Jesus, which is the real 
gospel, out of the world. Look ye 
hither, meantime, all ye blinded and 
fallen of mankind ; a better nature is 
among you, a pure heart, out of some 
pure world, is come into your prison, and 
walks it with you. Do you require us 
to show who He is, and definitely to ex- 
pound His person ? We may not be able- 



72 His Own Person 

Enough to know that He is not of us — 
some strange Being out of nature and 
above it, whose name is Wonderful. 
Enough that sin has never touched His 
hallowed nature, and that He is a friend. 
In Him dawns a hope — purity has not 
come into our world except to purify. 
Behold the Lamb of God ! Light breaks 
in ; peace settles on the air ; lo ! the 
prison walls are giving way ; rise, let us 
go!" 

And did you ever think of this ? What- 
ever may be the surprises of the future ; 
however different that other life to which 
we hasten may be from this, the ideal 
for that life can be no other than the 
ideal for this, namely — likeness in char- 
acter to Jesus. If the place of Heaven 
be in far-off shining Sirius, or in the 
flaming sun — wherever it may be, the 
pattern for life in it can be no other than 
the pattern for the noblest life on earth — 
identity of character with Jesus. '^ Be- 



The Fact of Jesus 73 

loved, now are we the sons of God, and 
it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; 
but we know that, when He shall ap- 
pear, we shall be like Him ; for we shall 
see Him as He is'' (I John iii. 2). 
The character of Jesus is, to use the fine 
phrase of another, ''negotiable in both 
worlds." 



VI. The Dynamic and Perpetuating Power 
of Jesus 

Of this Jesus it is impossible that you 
say ''He was,'' as you must say it of 
Augustus, Charlemagne, Luther, Wash- 
ington, Abraham Lincoln. Of this 
Jesus you must say "He is," in some 
vital and vitalizing way making our own 
day, though so distant from His own, 
electric with His presence and presiding. 
This Jesus is not a memory ; He is, even 
more efficiently than when He trod the 
paths of Palestine, a working, triumphing 
force. 



74 His Own Person 

How exquisitely and truthfully Whit- 
tier sings this dynamic efficacy of Jesus : — 

Immortal Love, forever full, 

Forever flowing free, 
Forever shared, forever whole, 

A never-ebbing sea ! 

No fable old, nor mythic lore. 

Nor dream of bards and seers, 
No dead fact stranded on the shore 

Of the oblivious years ; 

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet 

A present help is He ; 
And faith has still its Olivet, 

And love its Galilee. 

The healing of His seamless dress 

Is by our beds of pain ; 
We touch Him in life's throng and press, 

And we are whole again. 

Our Friend, our Brother and our Lord, 

What may Thy service be ? 
Nor name, nor form, nor ritual word, 

But simply following Thee. 



The Fact of Jesus 75 

Thy litanies, sweet offices 

Of love and gratitude; 
Thy sacramental liturgies, 

The joy of doing good. 



Or, take that marvellous confession of 
the great Napoleon, which Canon Liddon 
quotes in his Lectures on the Divinity 
of our Lord^ and for the genuineness of 
which he adduces authorities. Said Na- 
poleon the Great, prisoner there in St. 
Helena — '' Alexander, Caesar, Charle- 
magne, and I, myself, have founded great 
empires ; but upon what did these crea- 
tions of our genius depend ? Upon force. 
Jesus alone founded His empire upon 
love, and to this very day millions would 
die for Him. ... I think I under- 
stand something of human nature ; and I 
tell you, all these were men, and I am a 
man ; none else is like Him ; Jesus 
Christ was more than man. ... I 
have inspired multitudes with such an 
enthusiastic devotion that they would 



76 His Own Person 

have died for me, . . . but to do 
this it was necessary that I should be 
visibly present with the electric influence 
of my looks, of my words, of my voice. 
When I saw men and spoke to them, I 
lighted up the flame of self-devotion in 
their hearts. . . . Christ alone has 
succeeded in so raising the mind of man 
towards the Unseen, that it becomes in- 
sensible to the barriers of time and space. 
Across a chasm of eighteen hundred 
years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which 
is, beyond 'all others, diflicult to satisfy; 
He asks for that which a philosopher 
may often seek in vain at the hands of 
his friends, or a father of his children, or 
a bride of her spouse, or a man of his 
brother. He asks for the human heart ; 
He will have it entirely to Himself. He 
demands it unconditionally ; and forth- 
with His demand is granted. Wonder- 
ful ! In defiance of time and space, the 
soul of man, with all its powers and fac- 
ulties, becomes an annexation to the em- 



The Fact of Jesus 77 

pire of Christ. All who sincerely believe 
in Him, experience that remarkable 
supernatural love towards Him. This 
phenomenon is unaccountable ; it is alto- 
gether beyond the scope of man's cre- 
ative powers. Time, the great destroyer, 
is powerless to extinguish this sacred 
flame; time can neither exhaust its 
strength nor put a limit to its range. 
This it is which strikes me most ; I have 
often thought of it. This it is which 
proves to me quite convincingly the Di- 
vinity of Jesus Christ." 

VII. The Personal Appearance of Jesus 

Of course we cannot help being 
curious about it, but we cannot know. 
A most thoughtful student of the life of 
Jesus says, '' There is little doubt that 
Jesus wore the simple raiments of a 
Galilean peasant. This included the or- 
dinary turban of pure white, wound 
about the head, with folds which fell 
upon the neck and shoulders as a protec- 



78 His Own Person 

tion from the sun. On His feet were 
sandals. His inner garment was close- 
fitting, ^without seam, woven from the 
top throughout/ the work of some 
Galilean loom. Over this was worn an 
outer garment of plain blue, or of white 
striped with brown or dark blue — with 
fringes of white thread at the four cor- 
ners. The phylacteries, small rolls of 
parchment bound in ostentation on the 
arm or forehead of the Pharisees, we 
may be sure He did not wear. Even 
these simple garments were worn and 
faded with much travel and exposure. 
But kingship over man dwells not in 
royal robes, but in royalty of person ; 
and there were none who did not feel 
the simple dignity of Jesus.'' * 

The traditional face of Jesus is wholly 
traditional and unauthentic. 

But there was certainly a singular 
winningness about this Jesus. Little 
children trooped to Him. And He 

* The Life of Christ, by William J. Dawson, pp. 336-337. 



The Fact of Jesus 79 

would take them up in His arms, put 
His hands on them and bless them. 
His use of His hands was so constant 
and various that His habit in this regard 
flashes often forth from what record we 
have of Him. He put forth His hand 
and touched the leper. He came and 
touched the bier on which lay the body 
of the son of the widow of Nain. He 
took the sick mother of Peter's wife by 
the hand and lifted her up. He took 
the inanimate daughter of the ruler of 
the synagogue by the hand as He said 
to her, " My little child, I say unto thee, 
arise." Constantly this Jesus is putting 
Himself into hand-touch. He is no 
distant helper, no far-off and simply lec- 
turing teacher. Albeit His eye would 
flash with righteous indignation, and 
His presence would sometimes be so 
awe-inspiring that men would flee and fall 
before it — a gracious, longing, welcoming 
accessibility was His usual mien. 

Such then, indeed at the best but 



8o His Own Person 

poorly and dimly outlined — ^in His uni- 
versality, teachings, astounding claims, 
sinlessness, strangely dynamic power, 
probable dress and beautiful accessibility 
and winningness — is the Fact of Jesus. 



CHAPTER II 

The Question : IVho Then is This ? 

T^ T^OW vividly it came to me. I 
/ / was sailing on the sea of Galilee. 
The longing hope and dream of 
years had changed to verity. These 
waters He had crossed so many times. 
Those surrounding hills, and intervening 
plains His eyes had gazed upon. At last 
I myself was beholding all. I was rever- 
ently joyful. 

The boat in which I was sailing was of 

the same general sort He must have used. 

Customs change little there ; and only a 

boat of some such sort was fitted for 

F 8i 



82 His Own Person 

voyaging on such waters. It was a boat 
between twenty and thirty feet in length ; 
very broad in beam ; built most solidly ; 
with one great mast on which was hung 
a wide lateen sail, ready for spreading if 
the winds were favoring ; when no winds 
blew, long stout oars, grasped by perhaps 
a dozen rowers, must propel the vessel. 

When, there at the ancient city of 
Tiberias, the shore was left, all the winds 
were whist, the little lake was as a sea of 
glass. We must be rowed northward 
toward the -perhaps site of Capernaum, 
while the miles slowly drifted astern. 
But as we approached our destination, 
suddenly there was even violent change. 
Now the winds blew fiercely, and the 
hitherto smooth waters piled themselves 
into dashing waves amid which the boat 
staggeringly tossed. It was only with the 
utmost care and difficulty a landing could 
be had. 

Then how vivid it all seemed to me. 
How the memory of the record flashed 



The Question 83 

upon me. Upon waters as smooth as 
those I had seen at first, Jesus and His 
disciples had embarked. Upon some 
such rowers' bench as I then was looking 
on, Jesus, worn out with various labor, 
lay sleeping the drenching sleep that 
submerges utter weariness. A storm, 
quicker and fiercer far than that I saw, 
assailed. But so deeply was Jesus sleep- 
ing on that hard rowers' bench that 
neither the tossing of the boat, nor its 
almost foundering as the waves flung 
their angry crests over the gunwales, at 
all wakened Him. The disciples, expe- 
rienced sailors of that inland sea though 
they were and accustomed as they were 
to its whims of tempests, are terrified. 
Their cry to Jesus does what the storm 
cannot. It awakens Him. At His calm 
command, and instantly, the tumult of 
both wind and wave is changed to quiet- 
ness. 

And the awed disciples can only ask 
the inevitable question — '^Who then is 



84 His Own Person 

this, that even the wind and the sea obey 
Him ? " (Mark iv. 41). That question, 
inevitable concerning Jesus then, is even 
more inevitable and insistent concerning 
Jesus now ; for now this Jesus looms 
above the Christian centuries. He who 
is such Fact as our former chapter has 
attempted to outline ; He who, as Jean 
Paul Richter so eloquently and truly says, 
'^ being the holiest among the mighty, 
the mightiest among the holy, lifted with 
His pierced hands empires off their 
hinges, turned the stream of centuries 
out of its channel, and still governs the 
ages " ; — this unique, surprising Jesus 
must steadily provoke the question, ^' Who 
then is this ? '' 



CHAPTER III 

The Answer of yesus 

rHE answer which this Jesus shall 
give to this insistent question 
about His Person must be chiefly 
confined to the words which Jesus has to 
say about Himself, to the self-designa- 
tions of Jesus. 

It is to be noted that Jesus steadily 
puts the most determining value upon 
words. Words, in the thought of Jesus, 
are not trifles light as air. They are the 
lasting expressions of the one speaking 
them. They react upon and upbuild or 
degrade the character. They will con- 

8s 



86 His Own Person 

front us at the judgment. '' Every idle 
word that men shall speak, they shall 
give account thereof at the day of judg- 
ment'' (Matt. xii. 36). They expose 
the inner personality. " Out of the 
abundance of the heart the mouth speak- 
eth'' (Matt. xii. 34). Jesus' own words 
are the vehicle of power. ^^ The words 
that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and 
are Ufe '' (John vi. 63). Jesus' own words 
are the test of discipleship and the path 
into knowledge. "\i ye abide in My 
word, then . are ye truly My disciples ; 
and ye shall know the truth, and the 
truth shall make you free '' (John viii. 
31, 32). 

And Jesus is affluent of words about 
Himself, about His Person. I culled 
out, that I might set them in order and 
the more effectually study them, the 
words of Jesus about Himself given in 
the four Gospels. I was surprised to find 
that I had thus bulked together almost 
the major part of the four Gospels. And 



The Answer of Jesus 87 

surely the words concerning Himself 
of this Jesus — this luminously teaching 
One, this mightily claiming One, this 
sinless One, this One whose words are so 
athrill and lasting with strange dynamic 
energy — surely His words are worth 
our heeding as we seek answer to the 
imperious question ^^ Who then is this?" 
Certainly His own answer to the question 
must be the truest and most convincing. 

/. The Son of Man 

One main answer and teaching of this 
Jesus as to His own Person is that He is 
the Son of Man. 

How frequently this designation, the 
Son of Man, occurs in the four Gospels 
may be seen in the fact that this title 
occurs in St. Matthew's Gospel thirty- 
two times ; in St. Mark's Gospel thirteen 
times ; in St. Luke's Gospel twenty-four 
times ; in St. John's Gospel twelve times ; 
— in all, in the brief records of the four 
Gospels, eighty-one times. 



88 His Own Person 

It is to be immediately noted that 
Jesus invariably designates Himself as The 
Son of Man ; as though, in His own 
estimation, He were Son of Man in 
some paramount and exclusive meaning. 

Study, for a little, in what manifold 
and various relations this Jesus designates 
Himself the Son of Man. 

Jesus is the Son of Man in the earthly 
plight of homelessness and poverty. 
"' And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes 
have holes; and the birds of the heaven 
have lodging-places ; but the Son of 
Man hath not where to lay His head " 
(Matt. viii. 20). 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, is in demea- 
nor, uniformly social, unascetic, welcom- 
ing, brotherly. " The Son of Man came 
eating and drinking, and they say. Be- 
hold, a gluttonous man and a winebib- 
ber, a friend of publicans and sinners ! " 
(Matt. xi. 19). 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, is urgent 



The Answer of Jesus 89 

with a beneficent life-purpose. '' Even 
as the Son of Man came not to be minis- 
tered unto, but to minister, and to give 
His life a ransom for many" (Matt. xx. 
28). ''For the Son of Man came to 
seek and to save that which was lost " 
(Luke xix. 10). '' He that soweth the 
good seed is the Son of Man " (Matt. 
xiii. 37). 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, is clothed 
with power, even while on earth, to for- 
give sins. '' But that ye may know that 
the Son of Man hath authority on earth 
to forgive sins (He saith to the sick of 
the palsy), I say unto thee. Arise, take up 
thy bed, and go unto thy house. And 
he arose, and straightway took up the 
bed, and went forth before them all ; 
insomuch that they were all amazed, and 
glorifixcd God, saying. We never saw it 
on this fashion " (Mark ii. 10-12). 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, declares 
Himself to be the supreme test, standard, 
motive, of human conduct. '' Blessed 



go His Own Person 

are ye, when men shall hate you, and 
when they shall separate you from their 
company, and reproach you, and cast out 
your name as evil, for the Son of Man's 
sake " (Luke vi. 22). " For whosoever 
shall be ashamed of Me and of My words, 
of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, 
when He cometh in His own glory, and 
the glory of the Father, and of the holy 
angels " (Luke ix. 26). 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, declares 
Himself the fulfillment and consumma- 
tion of the Old Testament Scriptures. 
'^And He took unto Him the twelve, 
and said unto them, Behold, we go up 
to Jerusalem, and all the things that are 
written through the prophets shall be 
accomplished unto the Son of Man '' 
(Luke xviii. 31). ''The Son of Man 
goeth, even as it is written of Him '' 
(Matt. xxvi. 24). 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, is authorita- 
tive interpreter of the Old Testament 
Scriptures- ''And His disciples asked 



The Answer of Jesus 91 

Him, saying, Why then say the scribes 
that Elijah must first come ? And He 
answered and said, Elijah indeed cometh, 
and shall restore all things : but I say unto 
you, that Elijah is come already, and they 
knew him not, but did unto him whatso- 
ever they would. Even so shall the Son 
of Man also suffer of them. Then un- 
derstood the disciples that He spake unto 
them of John the Baptist'' (Matt. xvii. 
10-13). 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, sways sceptre 
over the most sacred institutions and ob- 
servances. " For the Son of Man is Lord 
even of the Sabbath Day'' (Matt. xii. 8). 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, declares a 
spiritual union with Himself as close and 
real as that between the body and the food 
which nourishes it, to be essential. ^^ Jesus 
therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, 
I say unto you. Except ye eat the flesh 
of the Son of Man and drink His blood, 
ye have not life in yourselves. He that 
eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood 



92 His Own Person 

hath eternal Ufe ; and I will raise him up 
at the last day. For My flesh is meat in- 
deed, and My blood is drink indeed. He 
that eateth My flesh and drinketh My 
blood abideth in Me, and I in him. As 
the living Father sent Me, and I live be- 
cause of the Father ; so he that eateth 
Me, he also shall live because of Me. 
This is the bread that came dovv^n out of 
heaven ; not as the fathers did eat, and 
died : he that eateth this bread shall live 
for ever'' (John vi. 53-58). 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, asserts for 
Himself a unique descent from heaven. 
^^And no man hath ascended into 
heaven, but He that descended out of 
heaven, even the Son of Man, who is in 
heaven " (John iii. 13). 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, asserts for 
Himself a re-ascent into the heavenly 
glory whence He came. '' What then 
if ye should behold the Son of Man as- 
cending where He was before ? " (John 
vi. 62). 



The Answer of Jesus 93 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, declares that 
the method of glorifying for Himself, and 
for His followers, must be that of sacri- 
fice. '' And Jesus answereth them, say- 
ing. The hour is come, that the Son of 
Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, 
I say unto you. Except a grain of wheat 
fall into the earth and die, it abideth by 
itself alone ; but if it die, it beareth much 
fruit. He that loveth his life loseth it ; 
and he that hateth his life in this world 
shall keep it unto life eternal '' (John xii. 
23,24). 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, declares 
Himself to be the connecting bridge be- 
tween earth and heaven. '' And He saith 
unto them. Verily, verily, I say unto you. 
Ye shall see the heaven opened, and the 
angels of God ascending and descending 
upon the Son of Man " (John i. 51). 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, would have 
His disciples distinctly recognize Him- 
self as the Messiah. '' Now when Jesus 
came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, 



94 His Own Person 

He asked His disciples, saying. Who do 
men say that the Son of Man is ? And 
they said, Some say John the Baptist ; 
some, Elijah : and others, Jeremiah, or 
one of the prophets. He saith unto 
them. But who say ye that I am ? And 
Simon Peter answered and said. Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God. 
And Jesus answered and said unto him. 
Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah : for 
flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto 
thee, but My Father who is in heaven'' 
(Matt. xvi. 13-17). 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, asserts for 
Himself a clear prevision concerning 
Himself. ^'And while they abode in 
Galilee, Jesus said unto them. The Son of 
Man shall be delivered up into the hands 
of men ; and they shall kill Him, and 
the third day He shall be raised up '' 
(Matt. xvii. 22, 23). ^^And I, if I be 
lifted up from the earth, will draw all men 
unto Myself. But this He said, signify- 
ing by what manner of death He should 



The Answer of Jesus 95 

die '' (John xii. 32, 33). " And they were 
on the way, going up to Jerusalem ; and 
Jesus was going before them : and they 
were amazed ; and they that followed 
were afraid. And He took again the 
twelve, and began to tell them the things 
that were to happen unto Him, saying, 
Behold, we go up to Jerusalem ; and the 
Son of Man shall be delivered unto the 
chief priests and the scribes ; and they 
shall condemn Him to death, and shall 
deliver Him unto the Gentiles : and they 
shall mock Him, and shall spit upon 
Him, and shall scourge Him, and shall 
kill Him ; and after three days He shall 
rise again'' (Mark x. 32-34). 

Jesus, as the Son of Man, unequivo- 
cally asserts for Himself a future glorious 
return, and deciding Judgeship. '' For 
the Son of Man shall come in the glory 
of His Father with His angels ; and then 
shall He render unto every man accord- 
ing to his deeds " (Matt, xvi. 27). 



96 His Own Person 

II. The Teaching of the Self-designation 
the Son of Man 

What now is to be said about this so 
frequent and so various self-designation 
of Jesus — the Son of Man, of which the 
foregoing instances are but scanty speci- 
mens ? 

This self -designation of Jesus must im- 
press us with its Reality. Veritably this 
Jesus was man. No face than His wears 
more accurately and manifestly the hu- 
man lineaments. It is affecting to re- 
member that the first mention of Jesus, 
other than in the New Testament, and in 
nearby contemporary history, is mention 
of Him in derision, and as at best a fanatic 
man. Says Tacitus, '' Christus, from 
whom the name — ' Christian ' — had its 
origin, suffered the extreme penalty dur- 
ing the reign of Tiberius, at the hand of 
one of our Procurators, Pontius Pilate ; 
and a most mischievous superstition, thus 
checked for a moment, again broke out. 



The Answer of Jesus cfj 

not only in Judea, the first source of the 
evil, but even in Rome, vv^here all things 
hideous and shameful, from every part of 
the world, find their centre and become 
popular/' So, as man^ as only one among 
the common run of men ; and, if at all 
marked, marked only as the starter of a 
mischievous superstition and by a conse- 
quent criminal execution, Jesus looks 
forth, for the first time, from history 
other than the New Testament. Any 
more prominent puppet of Nero, of 
which Emperor Tacitus was then writ- 
ing, would bulk larger in the historian's 
thought than the man Jesus slain by the 
Procurator Pilate."^ 

The body of Jesus was that of man. 
Previous to the Resurrection little won- 
der is told of it, save the wonder of its 
birth ; and even thus it came forth from 
the womb of a human mother. The 

* See Christian Doctrine by R. W. Dale, LL. D., pp. 45, 46. 
I have received various suggestions in my own discussion of 
the reality of our Lord's Humanity from Dr. Dale's chapter 
on " The Humanity of Our Lord," in that volume. 

G 



98 His Own Person 

body of Jesus grew, as does ours, from 
infancy through the intervening stages to 
maturity. It was craving with bodily 
wants. Jesus hungered, as the leafy fig- 
tree promised fruit. Jesus thirsted, as 
the fever the crucifixion kindled began to 
burn. Jesus was wearied, as the sun's 
heat smote Him on His long journey 
from Jerusalem northward through Sa- 
maria. Jesus slept, so profoundly that 
the clashings of the tempest could not 
disturb His slumber. The body of Jesus 
was substantial. They were real feet the 
tears of the penitent woman drenched ; 
those were real eyes flooding with sym- 
pathy at the tomb of Lazarus ; that was a 
real head anointed beforehand for its bur- 
ial by the loving Mary ; that was no phan- 
tom cheek which J udas kissed ; those were 
real hands the nails fastened to the cross- 
beams ; it was a real side the spear of the 
Roman soldier cleft ; it was a real broken 
heart whence the blood and water flowed ; 
that was a real dead body, limp and heavy 



The Answer of Jesus 99 

with the strange helplessness and weight- 
iness a real death brings, which was taken 
from the cross, wrapped in cerements, 
laid in the new tomb. 

The mind of Jesus was like that of 
man. He was " becoming full of wis- 
dom '' (Luke ii. 40). His horizons 
widened as ours do. His knowledge 
grew from less to more. As a boy He 
was asking questions of the doctors in 
the Temple as well as answering them 
(Luke ii. 46, 47). He did not dwell in a 
limitless and always cloudless noon of 
knowledge. Frequently He made in- 
quiries — " How many loaves have ye ? " 
'' How long time is it since this came 
upon him ? " '' Where have ye laid 
him?'' ^^ Do ye not yet perceive, nei- 
ther understand, have ye your heart yet 
hardened ? '' We are distinctly told that 
in Nazareth He marvelled because of 
their unbelief. Jesus Himself tells of a 
certain limitation of His knowledge, and 
concerning a vast matter — " Of that day 



loo His Own Person 

and hour knoweth no one, not even the 
angels of heaven, neither the Son, but 
the Father only " (Matt. xxiv. 36 ; 
Mark xiii. 32). 

Jesus was man, in the usual feelings 
and affections of our humanity. He had 
special friendships ; He was more in kin 
with some than with others, as we all are. 
His heart went out, in peculiar way, to 
the young ruler (Mark x. 21). " Now 
Jesus loved Martha and her sister and 
Lazarus " (John xi. 5). St. Peter, St. 
James and St. John belonged to the in- 
ner circle of the twelve. St. John was 
the eminently beloved. 

Jesus craved, as we all do, the closer 
companionship of trusted comrades in un- 
usual trial and stress. '^ He took with 
Him " the three disciples toward whom 
His heart quickest turned, and saying to 
them, "" My soul is exceeding sorrowful, 
even unto death," besought them to 
abide and watch with Him (Matt. xxvi. 
37, 38). 



The Answer of Jesiis loi 

Jesus knew the heat of a righteous 
wrath, as when, concerning the man with 
the withered hand, captious and cruel 
enemies were straining basilisk eyes to 
discover chance of accusation of Him, 
Jesus '' cast His glances round " ^^ with 
anger, being grieved at the hardening of 
their hearts " (Mark iii. 5). So also, Jesus 
was full of a longing pity and yearning 
for the distressed. How often do we 
read of His having '" compassion " — that 
word, in the original, so surcharged with 
heart-break for others, we have no Eng- 
lish word which can at all adequately tell 
forth its tenderness. 

So too, Jesus was subject to the exter- 
nal assaults and inner conflicts to which 
our humanity is never altogether stranger. 
It was only '' for a season " that the baf- 
fled adversary left Him, after the tempt- 
ation in the wilderness. And how true 
is the soul of Jesus to our own in His 
experience of those buffeting cross- 
currents when, in the presence of some 



I02 His Own Person 

vaster duty or suffering, the questioning 
spirit must regain its bearings and strongly 
reassert itself. '' Now is my soul trou- 
bled ; and what shall I say ? — Father, save 
Me from this hour ? But for this cause 
came I unto this hour. Father, glorify 
Thy name '' (John xii. 27). 

Also, Jesus knew, only in intenser 
way, the most crushing spiritual burdens 
and depressions. And these with Him, 
as with ourselves, reacted upon and 
dragged down His body. There in 
Gethsemane, " being in an agony He 
prayed more earnestly ; and His sweat 
became as it were great drops of blood 
falling down upon the ground " (Luke 
xxii. 44). And whatever abyss of vicari- 
ous significance those imploring words, 
^'My God, my God, why hast Thou 
forsaken me ? " (Mark xv. 34) may hold, 
they certainly carry as well the meaning 
of the profoundest, almost despairing 
spiritual dejection, with which, in their 
darkest hours, our own bestormed 



The Answer of Jesus 103 

hearts may claim at least a meagre kin- 
ship. 

Surely, the Son of Man was veritably 
man. Touch Him any where and you elicit 
the traits and responses of humanity. 

" Consider, Sir ! 
A human heart beat there ! a human brain 
Pondered and pitied and was sorrowful, 
Behind that sovereign brow. The blood of us — 
Of women and of men — coursed crimson, warm, 
In those rich veins ! Nay, and He ate our meats. 
And drank our drinks, and wore the dress we wore ; 
And His hair fluttered in the breeze which stirred 
Peter's and John's and mine." "^ 

Also, the Son of Man is a self-designa- 
tion of Service. It is the son's place to 
serve rather than to be served. Not in 
any arrogant and lordly way does this 
Jesus take His place among us ; but in 
the way of glad, lavish, even filial ministry, 
counting no task too great or too lowly 
which He may render those among 
whom He will assume no higher place 

* Sir Edwin Arnold. 



I04 His Own Person 

than that of Son. In this regard of serv- 
ing, even specifically, is this Jesus The 
Son of Man. Take that condensation 
of the beneficent activity of Jesus with 
w^hich St. Peter furnishes us (Acts x. 38), 
'^ Who went about doing good.'' Ana- 
lyze the phrase a little. " Who "—that 
is, He who ; His was a direct service, not 
so much one wrought through others, as 
a service to which He Himself gave ac- 
tual hand. '' Went about " — He sought 
chance for helping ; He did not wait 
till opportunity forced itself upon Him. 
" Doing " — His was not the passive and 
often lazy flooding of sentiment ; rather 
was it the practice of a real and personal 
exertion. ^'Good" — the sedulous and 
unremitting purpose of Jesus was to 
veritably load with benefit. 

" But he who lets his feeHngs run 

In soft luxurious flow, 
Shrinks where hard service must be done 

And faints at every woe." * 
* John Henry Newman. 



The Answer of Jesus 105 

But never thus did the serving Son of 
Man. And never once did He use His 
vast, strange power over nature, over dis- 
ease, over demons, over angels, for His 
own weal. 

Also, the Son of Man is a self-designa- 
tion of Veiling. During the last hours of 
His life on earth Jesus said, and even to 
His long-time and trained disciples, ^' I 
have yet many things to say unto you, 
but ye cannot bear them now " (John xvi. 
12). If such reticence on the part of 
Jesus were necessary toward those who 
had, for years, been His special pupils, 
surely such withholding was needful in 
His more general and public ministry. 
Only the prepared ground can prosper- 
ously receive the seed. Take, for ex- 
ample, Jesus' idea of the Messiah. "" The 
outward exaltation of the Jew, his tri- 
umphant elevation above all the empires 
of the earth, the foot of the Israelite 
placed on the necks of the Gentile kings, 
the Solomonic glory of Jerusalem in- 



io6 His Own Person 

tensified, the wealth of every clime pour- 
ing in upon the chosen people, the priests 
and scribes surrounding the Messianic 
throne in gorgeous array and satrapic 
power''* — these were the notions of 
Messiah and of Messiah's reign which 
inflamed the thought and fired the long- 
ing, both of the Jewish leaders and, al- 
most unanimously, of the Jewish popu- 
lace in the time of Jesus. The true idea 
of Messiah and of Messiah's Kingdom 
which Jesus came to herald, show forth, 
found, must be taught warily ; to the se- 
lect souls here and there, who only were 
able, and they but partially, to receive 
the teaching. The Messianic teaching 
of Jesus must be the leaven hidden in the 
meal till the whole mass should gradually 
be leavened. It was not until the last 
cycle of His ministry, and after His own 
long and intimate tutoring them, that 
Jesus could elicit from His disciples, there 
amid the seclusion of Caesarea Philippi, 

* Jesus, His Life and Work, by Dr. Howard Crosby, p. 354. 



The Answer of Jesus 107 

the confession that He was questionlessly 
the Christ of God, the long looked-for 
Messiah. This self-designation of Jesus, 
the Son of Man, enables Jesus to both 
conceal and at the same time gently to 
teach His own overturning, loving, pa- 
tient, internal, spiritual Messiahship and 
Kingdom. Sometimes, even on June 
days, the veiling mists are gracious lest 
we be blinded by excess of light. 

So too, this constant self-designation of 
Jesus, the Son of Man, must have veiled 
and chastened the hindering awe which, 
otherwise, Jesus must have inspired. To 
be sure, He was the lowHest among the 
lowly, the gentlest among the gentle, so 
welcoming and accessible that Uttle chil- 
dren would nestle in His arms ; but often 
there was a strange presence proceeding 
from Him, the spell of a superhuman 
power, as when He forgave the palsied 
man his sins and buttressed the forgive- 
ness by the man's instant healing ; as 
when at His word ^' Be muzzled,'' the 



io8 His Own Person 

riot of wind and wave crouched into a 
great calm. This gracious title, the Son 
of Man, falling so constantly from the 
lips of Jesus, was, as it were, a beckoning 
hand reached out, that awe might not 
scare and deter. 

Also, the Son of Man is a self-desig- 
nation of Disclosure. The title discloses, 
in Jesus' own conception of Himself, 
His thorough and interbraiding sharing 
with us. '' The Son of Man is no man's 
son, is, as it were, the child or offspring 
of the race.'*"^ Nothing human is for- 
eign to this Jesus. To be sure, as we 
have seen in our first chapter. He was 
untouched of sin. But sin is abnormal, 
does not belong to man's essential being. 
And the utmost stress of the mission of 
Jesus is to save men from it. To this 
end Jesus stands on no far and isolated 
peak of other being, but descends to 
tread our earth, to put Himself under the 
sad burdens sin has foisted on us, to over- 

* Dr. Fair bairn. 



The Answer of Jesus 109 

flow with an unfailing and limitless sym- 
pathy, to be close brother with the least. 
It is significant that neither disciple nor 
evangelist ever themselves speak of Jesus 
as the Son of Man. Once only, by other 
lips than His own, is Jesus so called in 
the New Testament. In vision, the mar- 
tyr Stephen exclaimed, '' Behold, I see 
the heavens opened, and the Son of Man 
standing on the right hand of God ' ' 
(Acts vii. 56). What can be the explana- 
tion of the singular silence on other lips 
of this title the Master so constantly 
placed upon His own ? I think it was, 
as has just been said, the various flashing 
forth of the notwithstanding otherness of 
Jesus. The disciples and the rest needed 
to be assured that this so great Being was 
yet deeply intricate with them, friend 
above all friends, truest brother, veritable 
sharer in the dependence, weakness, sor- 
row, straitness of their own plight. How 
precious such disclosure ! And as pre- 
cious for us to-day as it must have been 



no His Own Person 

to those amazed yet fascinated followers 
of Jesus as He taught, wrought, pitied, 
helped in Palestine. 

Of the ideal for man is this self -designa- 
tion of Jesus also disclosure. ^^ Jesus 
thus names Himself as belonging to man- 
kind — as one who in human nature has 
accomplished such great things for hu- 
man nature — who is man in the supreme 
sense, the sense corresponding to the 
idea, who makes real the ideal of hu- 
manity.'' And how sorely sin-blurred 
humanity needed, and still needs, such 
ideal ! It is easier to teach than to be. 
Lofty precept is one thing ; lofty precept 
actualized is another. 

And of contrast this title, the Son of 
Man, is also disclosure. '' The most ef- 
fective way to throw light upon sin is not 
to illustrate its nature by living a life of 
exceptional sinfulness, but to live a sin- 
less life among the sinful. As a matter 
of fact, from no other source has light so 
strong and searching fallen upon the ac- 



The Answer of Jesus in 

tual state and character of man as from 
the life and character of Christ. His 
moral greatness has shown men their de- 
fects. He has done more at once to 
humble human pride and to Kft up hu- 
man aspiration than any other, for He 
has shown men what they were and what 
the}^ ought to h^y^ And it was because, 
as the Son of Man — the one member of 
the race treasuring up and, at the same 
time, flawlessly illustrating and showing 
forth all excellencies, that Jesus at once 
condemned as standard, and stirred and 
incited as example. 

The Son of Man, this self-designation 
of Jesus, is also the disclosure o{ fitJiess for 
function, Jesus is man's Saviour and final 
Judge. None other than the Son of Man 
can fill such function. There must be 
community of nature and experience to 
adequately fill it. A young man was un- 
der great strain and plunged into deep 
despondency. His mood was partly the 

* Outlines of Theology, by W. N. Clarke, p. 279. 



1 1 2 His Own Person 

result of circumstances, partly because 
of his own wilfulness. One whom he 
knew and could trust came to help him 
if he might, to reprove him if he must. 
He who thus came proved his fitness for 
his coming by his method. "' I have felt 
just as you are feeling/' was his first 
word. "' I have known just the trials and 
bafflings which are assaulting you. ' ' Such 
words were as the June sun to frosted 
flowers, to the young man. So his path 
was not as untried and lonely as he had 
thought. Then this friend went on 
to persuade, reprove, impel to better 
courses ; having first displayed a fellow- 
feeling, springing from a similar expe- 
rience. That ministry saved that young 
man. No other could. To his dying 
day he who was that young man can 
never be thankful enough for it. 

It is halting illustration, but it a little 
helps. The Son of Man " hath been in 
all points tempted like as we are, yet 
without sin " (Heb. iv. 15). So His ex- 



The Answer of Jesus 113 

perience makes Him vibrate with sym- 
pathy, while His sinlessness enables Him 
for a kindly yet unerring judgment. 
'' Sinners are not fit to judge of sin — their 
justice is revenge ; their mercy is feeble- 
ness. He alone can attemper the sense 
of what is due to the offended Lord with 
the remembrance of that which is due 
to human frailty ; he alone is fit for show- 
ing manly mercy who has, Hke his Mas- 
ter, felt the power of temptation in its 
might and come scatheless through the 
trial. '"^ And how infinitely fit for such 
function is the Son of Man ! 

" But Thee, but Thee, O Sovereign Son of Time, 
But Thee, O poet's Poet, wisdom's Tongue, 
But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love, 
O perfect life in perfect labor writ, 
O all men's Comrade, Servant, King or Priest — 
What if or yet^ what mole, what flaw, what lapse, 
What least defect or shadow of defect, 
What rumor, tattled by an enemy. 
Of inference loose, what lack of grace 
* F. W. Robertson. 
H 



114 ^^^ Own Person 

Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's or death's — 
Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee, 
Jesus, good Paragon, Thou Crystal Christ/^* 

But whence came this title — the Son 
of Man ? Was it entirely original with 
Jesus, or was it, in a manner at least, 
derived ? Some say the title was wholly 
original with Jesus — a title altogether 
new — coined by Him. 

But consider a few facts. A title, at 
least somewhat similar, is in large use 
in the Old Testament. The Eighth 
Psalm sings : '' When I consider Thy 
heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the 
moon and the stars which Thou hast 
ordained, what is man that Thou art 
mindful of him, or the son of man that 
Thou visitest him ? '' (Ps. viii. 3, 4). 

In the Eightieth Psalm this note is 
struck, " Let Thy hand be upon the 
man of Thy right hand, upon the son 
of man whom Thou madest strong for 
Thyself " (Ps. Ixxx. 17). 

* Sidney Lanier, The Crystal Christ, 



The Answer of Jesus 1 15 

In the prophecy of Ezekiel the phrase 
son of man occurs with a ninety-fold 
iteration. It is thus Jehovah constantly 
addresses the prophet. A few specimens 
must suffice. '' Son of man, stand upon 
thy feet, and I will speak unto thee " 
(Ezek. ii. 1). ''Moreover He said unto 
me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; 
eat this roll, and go speak unto the house 
of Israel " (Ezek. iii. 1). '' And the word 
of the Lord came unto me, saying. Son of 
man, set thy face toward the mountains 
of Israel, and prophesy against them '' 
(Ezek. vi. 1, 2). ''And He said unto 
me. Son of man, can these bones live .? 
And I answered, O Lord God, Thou 
knowest" (Ezek. xxxvii. 3). 

Also, there is that famous passage in 
the prophecy of Daniel. " I saw in the 
night visions, and behold, there came 
with the clouds of heaven one like unto 
a son of man, and he came even to the 
ancient of days, and they brought him 
near before him. And there was given 



1 1 6 His Own Person 

unto him dominion, and glory, and a 
kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and 
languages should serve him ; his domin- 
ion is an everlasting dominion, which 
shall not pass away, and his kingdom that 
which shall not be destroyed '' (Dan. vii. 
13, 14). Of the whole vision of which 
the above is part. Dr. James Denny, in 
his Studies in Theology, page 36, lumin- 
ously says, "' Daniel's vision contains, in 
the briefest outline, a religious philoso- 
phy of history- — a sketch of the rise and 
fall of powers in the world till the final 
sovereignty comes. The prophet sees 
four great beasts come up from the sea 
and reign in succession. What they 
have in common is that they are beasts — 
brutal, rapacious, destructive. But they 
have their day ; the dominion they exer- 
cised is taken away from them ; it is 
transferred, — and here the vision culmi- 
nates, — to one like a Son of Man. The 
brute kingdoms are succeeded by a hu- 
man kingdom, the dominion of selfish- 



The Answer of Jesus 117 

ness and violence by the dominion of 
reason and goodness ; and this last is uni- 
versal and everlasting. This is the his- 
torical antecedent of the name, at once 
so intimate and so mysterious, which 
Jesus appropriated to Himself — the Son 
of Man," 

" For the Son of Man shall come in 
the glory of the Father with His angels ; 
and then shall He render unto every man 
according to his doing " (Matt. xvi. 27). 
'" And then shall appear the sign of the 
Son of Man in heaven : and then shall all 
the tribes of the earth mourn, and they 
shall see the Son of Man coming on the 
clouds of heaven with power and great 
glory" (Matt. xxiv. 30). ''Again the 
high priest asked Him, and saith unto 
Him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the 
Blessed ? And Jesus said, I am : and ye 
shall see the Son of Man sitting at the 
right hand of power, and coming with 
the clouds of heaven " (Mark xiv. 61, 62). 
How is it possible to read such statements 



ii8 His Own Person 

of Jesus, and not see that they get their 
suggestion and their coloring from the 
majestic prophecy of Daniel ? 

And there is nothing at all derogatory 
to Jesus in granting to the full that the 
self-designation of Jesus as the Son of 
Man strikes its roots back into the Old 
Testament. It rather enhances and makes 
more emphatic the dear truth of His real 
humanity, His interwining brotherhood. 
He was ^^ becoming full of wisdom" 
(Luke ii. 40). The book which fed and 
nourished His growing mind was the Old 
Testament. Never were one's whole 
thought and feeling so incited and flushed 
with a special literature as was Jesus by 
the Old Testament. So, naturally and 
rightfully, from that Old Testament did 
He appropriate that title which, on one 
side of it, best expressed His conscious- 
ness of His mission and His ofRce. Nor 
does this view at all damage the unique 
originality of Jesus. '^The secret of 
Shakespeare no more lies in his sources 



The Answer of Jesus 119 

than does the secret of the Parthenon in 
the quarry out of which it was built/'* 
As the Parthenon glorifies the quarry so 
does Jesus glorify and make precious 
both the elder Scripture in which the 
suggestion of the title lay, and the 
self-designation itself in which we see 
and feel so clearly and so deeply the 
throbbing of the mighty human heart of 
Jesus. 

A recent contention is that the title, 
Son of Man, is a labored translation into 
the Greek from the Aramaic — the prob- 
able speech which Jesus used — of the 
word bamasha ; that this term means 
only man ; that, therefore, Jesus, using 
this word, proclaimed Himself simply 
man^ assuming no special Messianic or 
official title in His self-designation. 

It is to be said, in answer, that such sup- 
posed meanings of Aramaic words are, as 
yet, conjecture ; that, even granting that 

* Dr. James Stalker. 



I20 His Own Person 

Jesus used the word bamasha — as He 
used it the word meant more than man 
only without peculiar dignity and au- 
thority ; that with the prophecy of Dan- 
iel in the mind of Jesus, the word, as 
Jesus used the wordy must have meant more 
than merely a usual man ; that — even al- 
lowing the contention about bamasha to 
be true, though there are no sufficient 
reasons for allowing it — it is as impossible, 
in the light of the four Gospels, to dis- 
sociate the Messianic and official idea 
from Jesus as it would be to destroy a 
canvas and preserve the portrait.* 

There is a quotation from Thomas 
Carlyle in The Christology of Jesus^ by 
Dr. James Stalker, so admirable in itself, 
and so properly applicable to those so de- 
termined to account for Jesus by meth- 
ods simply natural and second hand, that 
I cannot forbear quoting it myself. Says 
Thomas Carlyle — " Show our critics a 

* See The Teachings of Jesus, by Dr. George B. Stevens, 
pp. 90-91. 



The Answer of Jesus 121 

great man, they begin to, what they call, 
' account for him.' He was the ' creature 
of the time,' they say ; the time called 
him forth ; the time did everything, he 
nothing. This seems to me but melan- 
choly work. The times call forth ? Alas, 
we have known times call loudly enough 
for their great man, but not find him 
when they called. The time, calling its 
loudest, had to go down to confusion and 
wreck because he would not come when 
called. I liken common times, with 
their unbelief, distress, perplexity, their 
languid doubting character, impotently 
crumbling down through even worse 
distress to final ruin, all this I liken to 
dry, dead fuel, waiting for the lightning 
out of heaven that shall quicken it. The 
great man, with his free, direct force out 
of God's own hand, is the lightning. 
All blazes now around him. The critic 
thinks the dry, mouldering sticks have 
called him forth. They wanted him 
greatly, no doubt. But as to calling him 



122 His Own Person 

forth ! They are critics of small vision 
who think that the dead sticks have cre- 
ated the fire/' 

///. The Son of God 

A further main answer and teaching as 
to the Person of this Jesus is that He is 
the Son of God. This self-designation 
is not always in this special form. Some- 
times it is contracted into ^^The Son" 
or ^' My Son." Sometimes it is involved 
in the statement of the relation the Son 
bears to the Father. It is noteworthy 
how multitudinous these various designa- 
tions are in the four Gospels. Let me 
try to display this in the way of enumera- 
tion. I adopt the classification of the 
passages used in The Christology ofJesus^ 
by Dr. James Stalker. After a good deal 
of very careful counting I come to the 
following approximate result : 

The number of passages in the four 
Gospels in which Jesus is called the Son 
of God by others y Himself sometimes adopt- 



The Answer of Jesus 123 

ing the name, are in St. Matthew fifteen 
times, St. Mark seven times, St. Luke 
ten times, St. John six times ; in all 
twenty-eight times. Of this class of pas- 
sages these are specimens. 

''And Jesus, when He was baptized, 
went up straightway from the water : and 
lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, 
and He saw the Spirit of God descending 
as a dove, and coming upon Him ; and 
lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying, 
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am 
well pleased" (Matt. iii. 16, 17). 

'' And the tempter came and said unto 
Him, If Thou art the Son of God, com- 
mand that these stones become bread " 
(Matt. iv. 3). ''And they that were in 
the boat worshipped Him saying. Of a 
truth Thou art the Son of God'' (Matt, 
xiv. 33). " He saith unto them. But 
who say ye that I am ? And Simon 
Peter answered and said, Thou art the 
Christ, the Son of the living God. And 
Jesus answered and said unto him. Blessed 



124 His Own Person 

art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah : for flesh and 
blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but 
my Father which is in heaven '' (Matt. 
xvi. 15-17). "' And when he saw Jesus 
from afar, he ran and worshipped Him ; 
and crying out with a loud voice, he saith. 
What have I to do with thee, Jesus, Thou 
Son of the Most High God?" (Mark v. 
6, 7). "'And when the centurion, who 
stood by over against Him, saw that He 
so gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this 
man was the Son of God '' (Mark xv. 39). 
^' And the an*gel answered and said unto 
her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon 
thee, and the power of the Most High 
shall overshadow thee : wherefore also 
the holy thing which is begotten shall be 
called the Son of God" (Luke i. 35). 
''And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy 
womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt 
call His name Jesus. He shall be great, 
and shall be called the Son of the Most 
High " (Luke i. 32). '' And demons also 
came out from many, crying out, and 



The Answer of Jesus 125 

saying, Thou art the Son of God. And 
rebuking them, He suffered them not to 
speak, because they knew that He was 
the Christ" (Luke iv. 41). ^^Then said 
they all. Art Thou then the Son of God ? 
And He said unto them. Ye say that I 
am'' (Luke xxii. 70). 

'' And I saw and bare record that this 
is the Son of God '' (John i. 34). " Na- 
thanael answered and saith unto Him, 
Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God ; Thou 
art the King of Israel" (John i. 49). 
'' And we believe and are sure that Thou 
art that Christ, the Son of the living God '' 
(John vi. 69). '' She saith unto Him, 
Yea, Lord : I have believed that Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of God, even He 
that Cometh into the world" (John xi. 
27). "' The Jews answered him. We 
have a law, and by that law He ought to 
die, because He made Himself the Son of 
God " (John xix. 7). '' But these are 
written, that ye might believe that Jesus 
is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that 



126 His Own Person 

believing ye might have life through His 
name '' (John xx. 31). 

The number of passages in the four 
Gospels in which Jesus calls Himself 
"The Son'' — are in St. Matthew six, in 
St. Mark one, in St. Luke three, in 
St. John fifteen ; in all twenty-five. Of 
this class of passages these are specimens. 
^^AU things have been delivered unto 
me of my Father ; and no one knoweth 
the Son, save the Father ; neither doth 
any know the Father, save the Son, and 
he to whomsoever the Son willeth to re- 
veal Him" (Matt. xi. 27). ^^He trusted 
in God ; let Him deliver Him now, if 
He will have Him : for He said, I am 
the Son of God" (Matt, xxvii. 43). 
'' But of that day or that hour knoweth 
no one, not even the angels in heaven, 
neither the Son, but the Father'' (Mark 
xiii. 32). " Verily, verily, I say unto you. 
The Son can do nothing of Himself, but 
what He seeth the Father doing : for 



The Answer of Jesus 127 

what things soever He doeth, these the 
Son also doeth in like manner. For the 
Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him 
all things that Himself doeth : and greater 
works than these will He shew Him, that 
ye may marvel" (John v. 19, 20). ''And 
whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that 
will I do, that the Father may be glori- 
fied in the Son '' (John xiv. 13). 

The number of passages in the four 
Gospels in which Jesus calls God His 
Father, are in St. Matthew twenty, in 
St. Mark three, in St. Luke nine, in 
St. John thirty-one ; in all sixty-three. 
Of this class of passages these are speci- 
mens. " Not every one that saith unto 
me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the 
will of my Father which is in heaven'' 
(Matt. vii. 21). '' For whosoever shall do 
the will of my Father which is in heaven, 
the same is my brother, and sister, and 
mother'' (Matt. xii. 50). ''Whosoever 



128 His Own Person 

therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of 
My words in this adulterous and sinful 
generation ; of him also shall the Son of 
Man be ashamed, when He cometh in 
the glory of His Father with the holy 
angels" (Mark viii. 38). '^And I ap- 
point unto you a kingdom, as My Father 
hath appointed unto Me '' (Luke xxii. 
29). '^Then said Jesus, Father, forgive 
them ; for they know not what they do. 
And they parted His raiment, and cast 
lots " (Luke xxiii. 34). "' And when Je- 
sus had cried with a loud voice. He said, 
Father, into thy hands I commend My 
spirit : and having said thus. He gave up 
the ghost'' (Luke xxiii. 46). ''There- 
fore doth my Father love Me, because 
I lay down My life, that I might take it 
again " (John x. 17). '' In that day ye 
shall know that I am in My Father, and 
ye in Me, and I in you '' (John xiv. 20). 
" Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy 
sword into the sheath : the cup which 
My Father hath given me, shall I not 



The Answer of Jesus 129 

drink it ? '' (John xviii. 11). "" Jesus saith 
unto her. Touch Me not ; for I am not 
yet ascended to My Father : but go to My 
brethren, and say unto them, I ascend 
unto My Father, and your Father ; and 
to My God, and your God" (John xx. 
17). 

Jesus calls God Father or the Father, 
in St. John's Gospel, seventy-one times. 
Once, in St. John's Gospel, Jesus address- 
ing the Father, calls Himself ''Thy 
Son.'' '' These things spake Jesus ; and 
lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said. 
Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy 
Son, that the Son may glorify Thee " 
(John xvii. 1). Also, in St. John's Gos- 
pel, Jesus specifically calls Himself " the 
Son of God." " Verily, verily, I say unto 
you. The hour is coming, and now is, 
when the dead shall hear the voice of 
the Son of God : and they that hear shall 
live " (John v. 25). " Say ye of Him, 
whom the Father hath sanctified, and 



130 His Own Person 

sent into the world, Thou blasphemest ; 
because I said, I am the Son of God?" 
(John X. 36). '' When Jesus heard that, 
He said. This sickness is not unto death, 
but for the glory of God, that the Son 
of God might be glorified thereby" 
(John xi. 4). 

Also, in St. John's Gospel, Jesus spe- 
cifically declares Himself "'from God.'^ 
'^Not that any man hath seen the 
Father, save He that is from God, he 
hath seen 'the Father" (John vi. 46). 
'^'Jesus, knowing that the Father had 
given all things into His hands, and that 
He came forth from God, and goeth 
unto God " (John xiii. 3). Also, in St. 
John's Gospel, Jesus is called by others 
" The only begotten Son " ; and also de- 
clares Himself to be such. " No man 
hath seen God at any time ; the only be- 
gotten Son, which is in the bosom of the 
Father, He hath declared Him'' (John i. 
18)- ''And the Word became flesh. 



The Answer of Jesus 131 

and dwelt among us (and we beheld His 
glory, glory as of the only begotten from 
the Father), full of grace and truth'' 
(John i. 14). " For God so loved the 
world, that He gave His only begotten 
Son, that whosoever beheveth on Him 
should not perish, but have eternal life. 
For God sent not the Son into the world 
to judge the world ; but that the world 
should be saved through Him. He that 
believe th on Him is not judged : he that 
beheveth not hath been judged already, 
because he hath not believed on the 
name of the only begotten Son of God" 
(John iii. 16-18). I entirely believe 
these to be the words of our Lord Him- 
self. 

IV. The Messiah 

Another designation of Jesus, ascribed 
to Him by others, and by which He very 
frequently designates Himself, e, g. Matt, 
xvi. 20 ; xxiii. 10 ; xxiv. 5, 23, 24 ; xxvi. 
64 ; Mark ix. 41 ; xii. 35 ; xiii. 21 ; xiv. 61, 
62; Luke iv. 18, 21 ; xx. 41 ; xxii. 67, 68; 



132 His Own Person 

xxiv. 26, 46 ; John iv. 42 ; xi. 27 ; xx. 31^ is 
that of ^^The Messiah" or ^^The Christ." 
There is surely in this title, which Jesus 
so constantly both accepts and assumes, a 
self-revelation and teaching concerning 
His Person. 

But this title is more closely concerned 
with the Sacrificial Work of Jesus as 
Anointed and Atoning Priest, and is 
not so precisely concerned with teaching 
about His Person — though assuredly only 
such Person could be the world's great 
High Priest and sufficient and efficient 
Sacrifice — and therefore, the discussion 
of the title " Messiah '' or ''Christ " does 
not so appropriately fall within the par- 
ticular limits of this small volume. 

V\ Master, Lord, God 

These are also self-revealing titles 
which Jesus assumes or permits. The 
title '' Master '' — this title, in the mean- 
ing of rightful and Supreme Teacher, 
Jesus frequently allows. He is thus 



The Answer of Jeszis 133 

steadily addressed by the disciples and 
by others, and He as frequently accepts 
it. He also Himself distinctly assumes 
it. 

'' So when He had washed their feet, 
and taken His garments, and sat down 
again, He said unto them. Know ye what 
I have done to you ? Ye call Me Master, 
and Lord : and ye say well ; for so I am. 
If I then, the Lord and the Master, have 
washed your feet, ye also ought to wash 
one another's feet. For I have given you 
an example, that ye also should do as I 
have done to you. Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, A servant is not greater than 
his lord ; neither one that is sent greater 
than he that sent him. If ye know these 
things, blessed are ye if ye do them" 
(John xiii. 12-17). The title '' Lord ' — 
this title, in the meaning of possessing in- 
herent authority, Jesus often both allows 
and assumes. "' And they came to Him, 
and awoke Him saying. Save, Lord, we 
perish'^ (Matt. viii. 25). ''For the Son 



134 ^^^ Own Person 

of Man is Lord of the Sabbath '' (Matt 
xii. 8). '' If I then, your Lord and Mas- 
ter '' (John xiii. 14). 

The title " God ''—this title Jesus at 
least once, without questioning it, accepts, 
and, in another place, as distinctly implies 
His whole right to it. ''Thomas an- 
swered and said unto Him, My Lord and 
my God. Jesus saith unto him. Because 
thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed ; 
blessed are they that have not seen, and 
yet have believed '' (John xx. 28, 29). 
''If ye had known Me, ye would have 
known My Father also : from hence- 
forth ye know Him, and have seen 
Him. Philip saith unto Him, Lord, 
show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. 
Jesus saith unto him. Have I been so 
long time with you, and dost thou not 
know Me, Philip ? he that hath seen 
Me hath seen the Father; how sayest 
thou. Show us the Father.?" (John xiv. 
7-9). 



The Answer of Jesus 135 

VI. What must be Gathered from these 
Self-designa tions 

These various self-designations of Jesus, 
and these designations so frequently 
ascribed to Him by others and accepted 
by Him as true and proper titles, are 
certainly shining with teaching concern- 
ing the conception by Jesus of His own 
Person. 

Without question, from all these ex- 
alted self-designations and accepted epi- 
thets from others, we cannot gather 
otherwise than that Jesus was conscious 
constantly of an altogether lonely and unique 
personal relation with the Infinite Father. 

This consciousness of such unshared 
and unique relation with the Father is to 
be seen in the persistent differentiation 
of Himself by Jesus from all others. 
Steadily Jesus has peculiar speech con- 
cerning this relation. In this regard, Je- 
sus, though He is so constituently Son of 
Man, is yet other, and more than usual 
men can be, though they may be the 



136 His Own Person 

loftiest of their sort. '^ Teach us to pray, ' ' 
besought the disciples ; and the only in- 
stance of the use by Jesus of the term 
" Our Father," is when, as by teacher to 
pupil. He directs them to address God 
as " Our "—that is, their — Father. The 
Fatherhood of God, though Jesus con- 
stantly teaches it, is never, on the lips of 
Jesus, a common term including Himself 
with others. How deeply significant is 
this dividing Himself from others by Je- 
sus in such use of prayer ! How evi- 
dently does* this show that there was, in 
the consciousness of Jesus, a separateness, 
real and wide, from others in His own 
relation with the Father ! And this apart- 
ness from others, because His was such 
unique relation with the Father, steadily 
appears in many another word of Jesus, 
e. g.y ^^AU things have been delivered 
unto me of my Father" (Matt. xi. 27). 
^' And behold, I send forth the promise of 
my Father upon you " (Luke xxiv. 49). 
What profound intimacy and lustrou§ 



The Answer of Jesus 137 

partnership of knowledge with the Father 
Jesus asserts as the result of this unique 
relationship ! '' No one knoweth the 
Son, save the Father ; neither doth any 
know the Father save the Son, and he to 
whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal 
Him'' (Matt. xi. 27). 

This consciousness of an exclusive and 
unique relation with the Father is still 
further revealed in the declaration by Je- 
sus that He is "the only begotten'' of 
the Father. '' For God so loved the 
world that He gave His only begotten 
Son." " His Son, the only begotten/' is 
the order of the Greek words (John iii. 
16). I hold with such commentators as 
Lange, Stier, Meyer, Alford, that these 
are the veritable words of Jesus Himself, 
and not an addition and intrusion by the 
Evangelist. Certainly these words can 
mean nothing other than a most diverse 
and particular relationship with the Fa- 
ther. 

This consciousness of unparalleled re- 



138 His Own Person 

lationship, on the part of Jesus, with the 
Father is further evident from the fact 
that Jesus always declares Himself as be- 
ingj and not as becoming^ the Son of God. 
Others may become, in a certain meaning, 
sons of God (John i. 12) ; Jesus already 
is ^^The Son of God,'' and in meaning 
superlative. " If God were your Father, 
ye would love Me : for I came forth and 
am come from God ; for neither have I 
come of Myself, but He sent Me '' (John 
viii. 42). "" I came out from the Father, 
and am come into the world ; again, I 
leave the world, and go unto the Father '' 
(John xvi. 28). 

This consciousness in Jesus of this re- 
lationship with the Father alone and 
singular, further manifests itself in the 
clear claim by Him to divine attributes. 
For example — to the divine attribute of 
Pre-existence. " What then if ye should 
behold the Son of Man ascending where 
He was before '' (John vi. 62). ^' Jesus 
said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto 



The Answer of Jesus 139 

you, Before Abraham was born, I am'' 
(John viii. 58). '" And now. Father^ glo- 
rify Thou Me with Thine own self, with 
the glory which I had with Thee before 
the world was '' (John xvii. 5). For ex- 
ample again — the divine attribute of 
Omnipresence. ^'For where two or 
three are gathered together in My name, 
there am I in the midst of them " (Matt. 
xviii. 20). '' And lo, I am with you all the 
days, even unto the consummation of the 
age " (Matt, xxviii. 20). For example again 
— the divine attribute of Omnipotence. 
^' All authority hath been given unto Me 
in heaven and on earth " (Matt, xxviii. 18). 

The acceptance by Jesus of distinc- 
tively divine titles also discloses the con- 
sciousness in Jesus of a relationship with 
Deity sundered from all others. ''But 
Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell down 
at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me ; 
for I am a sinful man, O Lord " (Luke 
v. 8). And to the prostrate Peter there 



140 His Own Person 

is no rebuke from Jesus, such as St. Peter 
himself gave to the kneeling Cornelius 
when he would unduly reverence the 
apostle — '' Stand up ; I myself also am a 
man '' (Acts x. 26). ^^ Thomas answered 
and said unto Him, My Lord and my 
God " (John xx. 28). And Jesus did not, 
in the least, disown the title which only 
Deity may fittingly receive. 

The cloudless challenge of Jesus that 
He reveals the Infinite Father ; that sight 
of Him is the precise equivalent of sight 
of God, is crowning proof that in His 
consciousness Jesus stood to the Father 
in a relation even abyssmally unique. 
''He that hath seen Me hath seen the 
Father'' (John xiv. 9). 

Let me quote a few sentences from 
Professor Harnack. These affirming 
W-ords of the great German teacher are, 
it seems to me, most valuable because in 
this direction he so stoutly affirms, how- 
ever much, in other directions, he may 



The Answer of Jesus 141 

choose to deny. ^^ Jesus is convinced 
that He knows God in a way in which 
no one ever knew Him before. This 
consciousness of the unique character of 
His relation to God as a Son. . . ." 
'^ Again and again in the history of man- 
kind, men of God have come forward in 
the sure consciousness of possessing a 
divine message, and of being compelled, 
whether they will or not, to deliver it. 
But the message has always happened 
to be imperfect ; in this spot or that de- 
fective. ..." '' But in this case " — 
that of Jesus — ^^the message brought 
was of the profoundest and most compre- 
hensive character. . . ." ''Defective 
it is not . . .'' ''antiquated it is not, 
and in life and strength it still triumphs 
to-day over all the past. He who delivered 
it has as yet yielded His place to no man, 
and to human life He still to-day gives a 
meaning and an aim — He the Son of God.'' ^ 

* What is Christianity ? by Professor Adolf Harnack, 
pp. 138-140. 



142 His Own Person 

St. John tells us (John i. 12, 13) '' But 
as many as received Him, to them gave 
He the right to become children of God, 
even to them that believe on His name ; 
who were born, not of blood, nor of the 
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, 
but of God." Here arises a capital and 
determining question. As one answers 
it his whole religious thinking and feeling 
must take shape. This is the question — 
Does this unique relationship of Jesus 
with the Father mean a relationship 
differing only in degree from that of 
those who, accepting Jesus, are given 
the right to become children — sons — of 
God ? Does this sonship of the usual 
Christian differ only in amount from that 
of Jesus, or is the Sonship of Jesus some- 
thing differing from that of the usual 
Christian in limitless quality ? Answer 
this question in one way, and Jesus is but 
fairest specimen of the sort of sonship 
possible to all Christians ; answer this 
question in another way, and, while 



The Answer of Jesus 143 

Christians are, in their sort, sons of God, 
Jesus is the Son of God in a way sep- 
arated, peculiar, incommunicable. For 
myself, I am certain that the last answer 
is the only true one, and for reasons like 
these : 

Because only by such answer can the 
entirely unique relationship with the 
Father, which Jesus so steadily claims, 
be at all accounted for. 

Because the assumption by Jesus of 
divine attributes. His acceptance of di- 
vine titles, His positive declaration that 
sight of Him is exactly equivalent to 
sight of God, can have no other meaning 
than that Jesus was Himself consciously 
sharer, not only in the human nature, but 
as veritably and thoroughly in the Deific 
nature. 

Because, while it is deeply true that 
man may be in real kin with God, is 
created in His image, and so is capable 
of genuine spiritual converse with God — ^ 
it is still also true, and must ever be, that 



144 ^^^ Own Person 

man must remain man ; can never him- 
self pass upward into being deity. '^ God 
made thought, love, and volition to be 
essentially the same in man that they are 
in God. The life of God is a life of in- 
telligent volition, and so upon his lower 
plane is the life of man. The relation be- 
tween God and man is not such that man 
by growing can become God. Limits 
are set to man above in the very consti- 
tution of his nature, and he cannot pass 
them. He may become a perfect man, 
but he cannot transcend his nature and 
become infinite like God. Human na- 
ture is essentially finite ; limitations are a 
part of it. " " It is not true that man with- 
out limits would be God, for man can 
never be without limits ; but it is true 
that God within limits would be man, 
and it is conceivable that God, in the Son, 
might place Himself within the limits of 
humanity.'' "'We behold in Jesus a re- 
lation to God that we find nowhere else.'' 
'' God was in Him as He never was or 



The Answer of Jesus 145 

will be in any other human being." 
There was ''a peculiar quality in the 
human life that Jesus lived, and in Him 
as living it. Human as it was, that life 
differed in relation to God from other 
human lives. In great measure He in- 
tended other human lives to resemble it ; 
and yet our sources of information set it 
before us as a life that can never be 
wholly paralleled by any other." "^ 

Therefore, since Jesus is in such unique 
relation with the infinite Father that He 
is Himself Deific, He both can and does 
reveal to us God. 

That was no small contention which 
clashed at the Council of Nic^a — whether 
the Son of God was Homoouswn, of one 
essence, substance, nature, being, with 
the Father ; or whether He was only 
Homoiousioriy of similar essence with the 
Father, and consequently did not differ 
in sort and range from any finite spirit 

* Outline of Christian Theology, by William N. Clarke, pp, 
239, 264-266. 

J 



146 His Own Person 

made in the likeness of God. Mr. 
Froude tells us how Thomas Carlyle used, 
in his earlier years, to berate the tearing 
the Christian world to tatters over a diph- 
thong ; but Mr. Carlyle learned better in 
his later years, and saw how Christianity 
itself was at stake in the controversy, how, 
if the Arians had won, Christianity would 
have dried away into a dusty legend. 

Since the Son of God is of one sub- 
stance with Deity, He can, therefore, 
disclose God. " The Son reveals the 
Father, the apparent Christ reveals the 
unapparent God. He alone does this, or 
can do this ; and He can do it without 
any risk of mistake, because He is essen- 
tially the Father's image. If Christ is 
only a creature, His qualities can only 
occupy a certain space in the area of 
God's revelation of Himself; we have 
not got to what is ultimate and all-em- 
bracing in getting to Him. But if He is 
God it makes all the difference ; in Him 
dwells not one quality of God, but ' all 



The Answer of Jesus 147 

the fulness of the Godhead bodily ' '' 
(Col. ii. 9). =^ 

God is beyond my comprehension. 
His glory is like the sun, too dazzling for 
my vision, if I were to be admitted into 
His immediate presence I should be 
smitten and confounded. Even the 
seraphim can only endure the blaze of 
His close light as they reverently veil 
their faces with their wings. When I 
think of God, the Absolute, the Infinite 
— I can only say, " This knowledge is too 
wonderful for me." ^^Thy judgments 
are a great deep. " 

There are some plants which grow 
right up, in their own sturdy self-suffi- 
ciency. There are others which can 
only clasp and climb. The human soul 
is like the clinging plant ; it droops ex- 
cept there be some strong trellis to up- 
hold it. In order that my soul grow 
loftily it must have some near, yet high, 

* The Incarnation of the Son of God, by Bishop Gore, pp. 123, 
124. 



148 His Own Person 

support which, with its poor faculties, it 
may lay hold on. What do I need then ? 
I need God near me ; God brought some- 
how, and in some measure, into the terms 
of my apprehension. 

Talk to me of abstract power, of ab- 
stract holiness, of abstract love — though I 
may heedfuUy listen to you, I cannot al- 
together understand you. Perhaps you 
do not quite understand yourself. But 
show me divine power actualized, divine 
holiness personified, divine love throbbing 
in a heart like mine, and all are made real 
to me, and are, in some measure, lowered 
to the level of my little thought. I can 
cling to such disclosure, I can feel my- 
self lifted to the Throne as I lay hold of 
that. 

See how, and in but a single direction, 
Christ shows us the divine love, and 
brings the certainty of it down to us. 
See : the birth of every babe is made sa- 
cred by His own birth ; the wedding joy 
is sanctified and sent on in stronger pulses 



The Answer of Jesus 149 

by His presence ; childhood nestles be- 
neath His blessing ; the least touch of 
want, but upon the utmost fringe of His 
robe, unloosens the stream of loving 
help ; when the sisters bewail their dead 
brother, the eyes of Christ are suffused 
with tears ; when the nails tear Him and 
the thorns wound Him, love finds excuse 
in ignorance and Christ prays for His 
murderers, "'Father, forgive them, for 
they know not what they do ; " and the 
tragedy upon the cross is but the truth of 
the divine love written in the red and 
awful characters of a divine sacrifice. 
Thus God's love I become aware of, sure 
of, in Christ. He interprets it to me. 
He makes it real. He brings it close. 

So also, in other directions, I come to 
know God in Christ. Christ tells who 
God may be. Even my finiteness can 
lay hold of Christ. I am not left to vague 
and trying thought about the Infinite and 
the Absolute, about Force and Law. I 
hear Christ's words — ''He that hath 



150 His Own Person 

seen Me hath seen the Father ; '' and in 
that vision my soul is satisfied. 

VII. The Problem of the Person , and a hint 
as to its possible Solution 

What now is to be further said about 
this Person Jesus Christ who, as Son of 
Man and Son of God, according to His 
own teaching, carries in Himself so evi- 
dently the two natures — the nature hu- 
man and the nature Deific? Of course 
in this complex Personality we meet a 
problem. But should that surprise us.? 
Is not every one of us a problem to him- 
self? 

" How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, 

How complicate, how wonderful, is man ! 

How passing wonder He who made him such ! '* 

When to myself I am such wonder, the 
fact that He, one of whose prophetic 
names is '' Wonderful '' (Is. ix. 6), should 
be a problem to me ought not, either to 



The Answer of Jesus 151 

astonish me, or be the least reason for 
my rejecting Him. 

As we gaze upon this Jesus Christ, 
made evident to us in the New Testa- 
ment, the unescapable fact about Him is 
the presence in Him of profound con- 
trasts. As, in the case of no other being 
who has ever appeared within the arena 
of our knowledge, He possesses this, and 
at the same time that strangely differing 
quality. In Him even contradictions find 
strange marriage. Admirably has the 
late Dr. Henry B. Smith set over against 
each other the vast contrasts present and, 
at the same time, conjoined in the one 
Person, Jesus Christ. " Christ is called 
the Son of David, yet David calls Him 
Lord ; He was understood to claim equal- 
ity with the Father — as man He had not 
where to lay His head ; He took part 
with flesh and blood, yet thought it not 
robbery to be equal with God ; He took 
the form of a servant, yet His proper 
form was the form of God ; He taber- 



152 His Own Person 

nacled in the flesh, yet came down from 
heaven ; He said that He could of His 
own self do nothing, yet He is said to be 
the Lord of all ; His mother is called 
Mary, yet He is over all, God blessed 
forever ; He was born under the law and 
fulfilled the law, and yet in His own 
name gave a new and more perfect law, 
and brought in a new and everlasting 
righteousness ; He was received into 
heaven out of the sight of His disciples, 
yet He is still with them, with any two 
or three of' them always, and even to the 
ends of the earth ; He was found in fash- 
ion as a man — and yet is the image of the 
invisible God ; He hid not His face from 
shame and spitting, though He be the 
very brightness of the Father's glory ; He 
increased in stature, yet is the same yes- 
terday, to-day, and forever ; He increased 
in wisdom, yet knew the Father even as 
the Father knew Him ; He died at the 
mandate of a Roman governor, yet is the 
Prince of the kings of the earth ; He could 



The Answer of Jesus 153 

say, ' The Father is greater than 1/ yet 
also say, ' I and my Father are one — he 
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father ; ' 
He said, in the time of His temptation, 
unto Satan, ' It is written, " Thou shalt 
worship the Lord thy God, and Him 
only shalt thou serve," ' yet He also de- 
clared that all men should honor the Son 
even as they honor the Father ; and of 
Him it is asserted that every knee should 
bow to Him, and every tongue confess 
that He is God, to the glory of God the 
Father/'^ 

Pare down, round the edges of, be- 
littlingly interpret, the teachings of Jesus 
about Himself as given us in the New 
Testament, as you may please ; if only, 
you will not cut out and fling away an 
entire half of those teachings, it is as im- 
possible to resist the impression of a real, 
however strange, doubleness in His Per- 
sonality as it is to resist the sensation of 

* System of Christian Theology^ by Henry B. Smith, D. D., 
LL. D., p. 386. 



154 ^^^ Own Person 

sight when the sunbeam strikes the retina 
of the eye. Construct a circle of all the 
elements belonging to even the largest 
sort of a human nature, and then attempt 
to make the circle of the Person of Je- 
sus, as He has taught us of His Person, 
coincident with it, and the circle of His 
Personality sweeps beyond it as does the 
horizon overpass the chalk circle the 
schoolboy describes upon the blackboard 
when he demonstrates his proposition in 
geometry. On the other hand, put to- 
gether all you have ever learned of Deity, 
and try to express the Personality of Je- 
sus solely in the terms of Deity, and you 
must discover that you have dropped en- 
tirely out of the account a whole side and 
share of what constituently belongs to 
this Jesus, as He, in the New Testament, 
has disclosed Himself. Complexity of 
being is the immediate and insistent im- 
pression which comes from any open- 
minded looking at the Person Jesus. 
Nor is it scientific to deny this so evi- 



The Answer of Jesus 155 

dent complexity. That only is a scien- 
tific method which takes resolute regard 
of all the facts. To shut one's eyes to 
this or to that element in the complex 
Person Jesus is as unscientific as it would 
be for a geologist to declare that the 
carboniferous was the only geologic 
era through which the earth had 
passed. 

No ; complexity — strange indeed, yet 
real as is Jesus Himself — is the primary 
and clear fact about the Person Jesus 
Christ. And this double range of being 
in Him has found forth-telling in that 
epithet which can be appropriately given 
Jesus, but can be given to Him only — 
the Divine-human Jesus. 

I think these wise, true words of Mr. 
Ruskin, " We lose half the meaning and 
evade the practical power upon ourselves, 
by never accepting in its fulness the idea 
that our Lord was ' perfect man ' ; tempted 
in all things like as we are. Our preach- 
ers are continually trying, in all manner 



156 His Own Person 

of subtle ways, to explain the union of 
the divinity with the manhood, an ex- 
planation which certainly involves first 
their being able to describe the nature of 
Deity itself, or, in plain words, to compre- 
hend God. They never can explain, in 
any one particular, the union of the na- 
tures ; they only succeed in weakening 
the faith of their hearers as to the entire- 
ness of either. The thing they have to 
do is precisely the contrary of this — to 
insist on the entireness of both. We never 
think of Christ enough as God, never 
enough as man ; the instinctive habit of 
our minds being always to miss of the 
divinity, and the reasoning and enforced 
habit to miss of the humanity. We are 
afraid to harbor in our own hearts, or to 
utter in the hearing of others, any thought 
of our Lord as hungering, tired, having a 
human soul, a human will, and affected 
by events of human life as a finite creature 
is ; and yet one-half of the efficiency of 
His atonement, and the whole of the 



The Answer of Jesus 157 

efficiency of His example, depend on His 
having been thus to the full/' "^ 

" To insist on the entireness of both " 
the natures — that, it seems to me, is the 
first thing and the only scientific thing to 
do. 

The human element in the Person Jesus 
Christ is to be steadily and clearly recog- 
nized ; is to be grasped in all thought of 
Him ; is to be ruggedly insisted on as to 
its reality and integrity. The ancient 
Docetas declared that the human body 
of Jesus was but a phantasm, something 
only seeming to be, not existing actually ; 
—that we may never say. The later 
Gnostics, hke Valentinus, said that the 
body of Jesus was wholly pneumatic — 
spiritual : that it passed through the body 
of His mother as water through a reed : 
that Jesus took up with Himself nothing 
of the human nature which was of the 
substance of His mother; neither that 
may we declare. The ApolHnarians as- 

^ Moder7i Painters^ Yol. iv, pp. 372, 373. 



158 His Own Person 

serted that the human nature of Jesus 
was, at highest, fragment only ; that while 
Jesus did possess a human body and a 
human soul, He missed possessing a hu- 
man spirit, the human spirit being dis- 
lodged and thrust away by the deific 
principle. But such a mutilated Christ 
answers neither to the plain require- 
ments of the New Testament, nor to the 
deep calling of humanity for a whole 
Saviour. 

We may not sublimate the human na- 
ture of Jesus into a kind of mist and film ; 
nor may we so subtract from it as to cut 
into or cut away its pith and verity. We 
are to insist on its entireness. " For verily 
not of angels doth He take hold, but He 
taketh hold of the seed of Abraham. 
Wherefore it behooved Him in all things 
to be made like unto His brethren, that 
He might become a merciful and faith- 
ful high priest in things pertaining to 
God, to make propitiation for the sins of 
the people. For in that He Himself 



The Answer of Jesus 159 

hath suffered being tempted, He is able 
to succor them that are tempted " (Heb. 
ii. 16-18). 

Also, and on the other hand, and as we 
continue to gaze upon this complex Per- 
son, we must, if we would at all scien- 
tifically recognize the whole facts in the 
great instance, as entirely take account 
of the divinity which so luminously shines 
in Jesus. And this divinity we may not 
prune down to any other meaning than 
that of Deity. 

There has come about, in the use of 
the word divine, a giving it a scanty, shal- 
low, misleading sense. The word has 
gotten badly lowered into a poor synony- 
mousness with only the grand, the im- 
pressive, the beautiful. As some speak 
the word divine, it signifies but the high- 
est of a sort — not the utmost, the Deific. 
So those who would hold Jesus simply 
in the natural and human category are 
^constantly, but always misleadingly, call- 
ing Him divine. He is the divine man. 



i6o His Own Person 

such say, and they are very free with 
reverent and applauding speech about 
Him. But if you press such you will 
discover they mean that Jesus is divine 
only in the sense in which poets call some 
rare day in June divine, or in the sense 
in which art-critics sometimes rave about 
what they choose to declare a divine pic- 
ture. For such Jesus is never divine as 
Deity ; He is only divine as possibly the 
utmost and ideal man. Putting this quite 
Pickwickian meaning upon the word, 
such can declare, still calling Jesus divine, 
that He by no means enters, in any wise, 
the realm of essential Deity. 

But He who accepted from the at last 
believing and adoring Thomas the ascrip- 
tion which only Deity may receive, and 
altogether without rebuke of the disciple 
— ^' My Lord and my God,'' He who, 
without the slightest reserve or qualifica- 
tion, declared Himself to be the disclosure 
of the Infinite, that sight of Him was 
veritable sight of God, must have been 



The Answer of Jesus i6i 

conscious of share in the divine nature in 
the measureless meaning of that nature. 
Or, for the old dilemma — '^ Aut Deus aut 
non Sonus/' either God or not good — still 
stands, Jesus must have consciously de- 
ceived, which last horn of the dilemma, 
in view of the sinless character of Jesus, 
is unthinkable and impossible. 

No ; and other Scripture bears out the 
teaching of Jesus concerning His share 
in the divine nature in the utmost mean- 
ing of that nature — '^ In the beginning 
was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God;'' ^^And 
the Word became flesh and dwelt among 
us;'' ''Who being the effulgence of 
His glory and the very stamp of His 
essence ; " — no ; in the supreme meaning 
of Deity is Jesus Deity. 

But how can two such elements as a 
nature essentially human and a nature 
essentially divine be conjoined in the 
one Person ? In the presence of such a 
problem what better can we do than ex- 

K 



1 62 His Own Person 

claim with the great apostle to the Gen- 
tiles — " And without controversy great is 
the mystery of godliness '' (I Tim. iii. 
16). While so much insoluble mystery 
hangs about one's self, can we expect to 
entirely scatter the mystery shrouding 
the Person of the wonderful Christ ? 

I find hint, and at least a gleaming of 
light for myself here, in the distinction 
between a nature and a person. ^' Na- 
ture, as compared with person is that 
substratum or condition of being which 
determines the kind and attributes of the 
person, but is clearly distinguishable from 
the person itself. Christ assumed human 
nature, but He did not assume a human 
person ; and the two natures were so 
conjoined as to constitute a single per- 
sonality."* Not a human person, like 
Peter or James or John, did the Deific 
principle in Jesus take upon itself, but 

* Christian Theology^ by E. G. Robinson, D.D., LL.D., 
President and Professor in Rochester Theological Seminary, 
and later, President of Brown University and Professor of 
Ethics in the University of Chicago, p. 2i6. 



The Answer of Jesus 163 

the Deific principle in Jesus did take 
upon itself a human nature. A sepa- 
rated subsistence, like the simply human 
personality of Peter or James or John, 
the human nature in Jesus was not. The 
human nature in Jesus was impersonal, 
not yet separated and emerging into a 
human personality. The human nature 
in Jesus came to its personality because 
of and through its union with the already 
personal divine Logos. That which was 
the basiis of personality in Jesus was not 
the human nature assumed, but was the 
personal divine Logos already existing 
and assuming. 

Thus, — and here at least a little light 
seems to shine for me, — by the assump- 
tion by the divine and already personal 
Logos of a human nature which became 
personalized through its union with the 
already personal divine Logos, did the 
human nature and the divine nature come 
to union in the one complex Person, 
Jesus Christ. 



164 His Own Person 

And so, the resulting complex Person, 
Jesus Christ, did not have two separate 
consciousnesses and two separate wills, 
but did have one theanthropic conscious- 
ness and one theanthropic will. 

The, to me, most satisfactory state- 
ment about the great mysterious matter 
I have ever come on, is the following : 
^^ The two natures united in the person 
of Christ constituted a single theanthropic 
personality. This personality appears in 
the New Testament in two ever-shift- 
ing lights, corresponding to its two un- 
mixed natures and their unblended but 
interpenetrating and mutually modified 
attributes ; but always as one and the 
same person with one consciousness and 
one will. Those opposite sayings of His 
which present Him now in a divine and 
now in a human aspect^ are not to be 
referred, the one to the man Jesus and 
the other to the Divine Logos, as if the 
consciousness and will of one nature were 
sometimes in the ascendancy and some- 



The Answer of Jesus 165 

times those of the other. On the con- 
trary, Jesus Christ was a single person, 
one divine-human being, the God-man, 
who, with one undivided consciousness 
and a single unvarying will, contemplated, 
sometimes His earthward relations and 
humiliations, and sometimes the preex- 
istent position He had temporarily for- 
saken. . . . The Divine Logos in 
becoming man did not cease to be divine, 
and the human, in being united to the 
divine, did not cease to be human. '"^ 

And because the complex Person Je- 
sus was human, as well as at the same 
time divine, light begins to fall for me 
abcut the limitations and some ignoran- 
cies of the complex Person Jesus. Dis- 
tinction is to be made between the pres- 
ence and the manifestation of the divine 
in Him. As another says : "'This is the 
key to the doctrine of the Kenosis'' 
That deity should condescend to such 
union with human nature as to be re- 

'^ Christian Theology^ by Dr. E. G. Robinson, pp. 218-219. 



1 66 His Own Person 

vealed in the terms of human nature is 
the pith and point, and at the same time 
the abysmal depth of the divine humiha- 
tion. For, necessarily, the Divine Logos 
must be limited in His manifestation by 
the human nature which He had as- 
sumed. Condescending to take upon 
Himself a human nature at the embry- 
onic and infantile stages of it, the mani- 
festation of the divine in Jesus must, to 
large degree, be dependent upon the 
phase and stage that human nature, in 
its development, had reached. Not less 
was the Divine Logos present in the com- 
plex Person, Jesus Christ, when He lay 
a babe in His mother's arms ; but that 
babyhood, by the very terms of its then 
only infantile development, necessarily 
limited the manifestation of the certainly 
present Divine Logos. So could the 
complex Person, Jesus Christ, pass 
through the determined and natural 
stages of a human development. So 
could He increase in stature ; so could 



The Answer of Jesus 167 

He grow in wisdom and in favor with 
God and man ; and all along, and all the 
time, so could, so must, there be only so 
much manifestation of the divine in Je- 
sus as was possible for the stage of the 
human development at that time reached. 
So, it seems to me, it was possible that 
the Son of Man, at that period of His 
development, might not know the day or 
the hour of the final consummation. 
Always the manifestation of the always 
present divine nature in Jesus was de- 
pendent upon the stage of development 
the humanity in Jesus had arrived at. 
Probably there was something special 
and peculiar in that knowledge about the 
final end of things. But not knowing 
then, it does not follow that he could 
never know. That is a suggestive com- 
ment of Bengel — '' the stress, in St. Mat- 
thew xxiv. 36, is on the present tense, 
' No man hioweth ; ' in those days no 
man did know, not even the Son ; but 
afterwards He knew it, for He revealed 



1 68 His Own Person 

it in the Apocalypse/' There was pro- 
gression of manifestation of the divine in 
Jesus in proportion as a progressing de- 
velopment of the human in Jesus gave 
chance for the divine in Him to shine 
more radiantly forth. " It is more prob- 
able that the glorified human mind of 
Christ on the mediatorial throne now 
knows the time of the day of judgment 
than that it is ignorant of it. The Logos, 
though present, could not properly and 
fittingly make such a manifestation of 
knowledge through that infant body and 
infant soul, as he could through a child's 
body and a child's soul, and still more 
through a man's body and a man's soul. 
It would have been unnatural, if the 
Logos had empowered the infant Jesus 
to work a miracle or deliver the Sermon 
on the Mount. The repulsive and un- 
natural character of the apocryphal gos- 
pels, compared with the natural beauty 
of the canonical gospels, arises from at- 
tributing to the infant and child Jesus 



The Answer of Jesus 169 

acts that were befitting only a mature hu- 
manity/' "^ 

Have I, in what I have been writing, 
been " darkening counsel by words with- 
out knowledge " ? Quite possibly I have 
to some. I have been trying to tell 
where, to myself, at least some light 
seems to shine on the vast problem of the 
Person of Jesus. 

I was reading how Leonardo da Vinci 
painted at, and yet could not complete, 
his greatest picture, "^ The Last Supper/' 
He wrought easily and victoriously at the 
heads of the apostles ; but when he came 
to trying to give form and color to what 
he conceived ought to be the portrait of 
Jesus, he was baffled. He could not at 
all, by any art, tell Jesus adequately forth. 
The space in the great picture he meant 
to have filled with a vision of Jesus, he 
could never fill. Jesus was too mighty 

*In the proceeding discussion I have allowed myself to 
make somewhat free use of an essay of mine on the Person of 
our Lord pubHshed in The Hoi?iiletic Review for March and 
April, 1894. 



lyo His Own Person 

for him. Another hand than that of 
Leonardo da Vinci, dared — any glance at 
the picture shows how inadequately — to 
attempt the impossible. 

So must the unique and divine-human 
Jesus sweep beyond and shame any at- 
tempt at the complete explanation of His 
complex Person. Our main duty is not 
so much attempted explanation of Him, 
as thankful and adoring reception of 
Him ; of Him who, being at once Son 
of Man and Son of God, reveals God to 
man, and atoningly opens for sinful man 
the way to God. 



CHAPTER IV 

Some Conclusions 

I. As to the Supernatural Birth 

/N Professor Harnack's volume,"^ he 
says, '' Two of the Gospels do, it is 
true, contain an introductory history 
(the history of Jesus' birth) ; but we may 
disregard it ; for even if it contained 
something more trustworthy than it does 
actually contain, it would be as good as 
useless for our purpose. That is to say, 
the Evangelists themselves never refer to 
it, nor make Jesus Himself refer to His 
antecedents. . . . Paul, too, is silent , 

* What is Christianity ? p. 2,Z' 

171 



172 His Own Person 

so that we can be sure that the oldest 
tradition knew nothing of any stories of 
Jesus' birth." 

It is useless to deny that words like 
these, and from so great a teacher, reveal 
a tendency — in these days, and in certain 
quarters, a very strong tendency — to treat 
the historic statements of St. Matthew 
and St. Luke concerning the birth of 
Jesus from the Virgin, as statements not 
weighted with the substance of doctrine, 
as something not necessary to Christian 
belief, as the assertions of myth and leg- 
end, gathering, as the years went, about 
the purely natural generation and birth 
of Jesus. 

But further on in this same volume. 
Professor Harnack, having thus declared 
the accounts of the supernatural birth of 
Jesus unhistorical, is obliged to confess 
himself confronted by a difficulty and a 
mystery concerning Jesus altogether un- 
movable and insoluble. He is speaking 
of the peculiar and unique consciousness 



Some Co7ichisions 173 

of Jesus as the Son of God, so apparent 
in all the teachings of Jesus about Him- 
self. Professor Harnack says (p. 138) : 
^^ How He came to this consciousness of 
the unique character of His relation to 
God as a Son ; how He came to the con- 
sciousness of His power, and to the con- 
sciousness of the obligation and the mis- 
sion which this power carries with it, is 
His secret, and no psychology will ever 
fathom it/' 

And must not everyone denying, or 
even questioning, the birth of Jesus from 
the Virgin, find himself striking against 
the same dense difficulty ? Are not the 
declarations of the Evangelists of the birth 
of Jesus from the Virgin precisely the 
clue^ and, after all, the only real clue to 
the so evident and constant consciousness 
of Jesus that, as the Son of God, He did 
stand to God in a relation altogether 
separate and singular ? Is it, after all, 
conceivable that such shining and exalted 
consciousness could have ever come to 



174 H^^ Own Person 

one who was the issue of no special 
divine parentage, to one born only from 
the usual line of a human ancestry ? Is 
the problem of the complex person of 
Jesus in the least helped toward even a 
partial solution by the denial of the 
supernatural birth ? Is not the accept- 
ance of the fact of such birth the very 
light we need to at all account for the 
'^ secret '' of the unique consciousness of 
Jesus as veritably, and in a solitary way, 
the Son of God ? 

Besides, think of the exquisiteness of 
the narrative of the supernatural birth of 
Jesus. How tender, delicate, disclosing, 
and at the same time wonderfully and 
beautifully reticent it is ! The self-sur- 
render of Mary to the will of God that 
that Holy Thing might be born of her 
and be called the Son of God ; her will- 
ingness, since that was also the will of 
God, to herself pass under the necessarily 
accruing misconceptions of it all about 
her pure and fair virginity ; her breaking 



Some Conclusions 175 

forth into such rapture and chastened 
praise that she was to be — what every 
Hebrew woman had for centuries been 
longing to be — the mother of Messiah ; 
her womanly and shadowing treasuring 
of the circumstances of the birth of Jesus 
in her heart, and the impossibility that 
she, a mother, could ever have been mis- 
taken about the manner of her boy's 
birth ; at the same time, the full, fair, 
free knowledge of Joseph, her betrothed, 
about it all, and his reverent acceptance 
of it all ; and after the birth from the 
Virgin, the marriage of Joseph and Mary, 
and so no slightest discredit cast upon the 
holy estate of marriage — it is beyond the 
bounds of the conceivable that such a 
narrative should have been concocted, 
and have been the product of a legendary 
aftergrowth. The narrative fits all the 
great necessities of the great event as ac- 
curately and as gently as the sunlight fits 
the healthy eye and gives it vision. Noth- 
ing in any literature can match it. As the 



176 His Own Person 

overshadowing Power of the Most High 
had to do, according to the narrative, 
with the conception and the birth, so 
must the Power of the Most High have 
had to do with the narrative which en- 
shrines and tells of the incarnation. To 
suggest that the narrative tells untruly is 
to suggest the impossible in view of the 
matchless narrative itself. 

Besides, the fact of the supernatural 
birth is not so out of order and athwart 
all analogy as it may sometimes seem to 
be ; any one 'at all acquainted with the in- 
vestigations of recent science knows that 
production from one parent is not an 
unheard-of thing in nature. Says Dor- 
ner, '' The new science recognizes mani- 
fold methods of propagation." Says 
even Professor Huxley, " I have not the 
slightest objection to offer a priori to all 
the propositions of the three creeds. 
The mysteries of the church are child's 
play compared with the mysteries of 
nature. The doctrine of the Trinity Is 



Some Conclusions 177 

not more puzzling than the necessary 
antinomies of physical speculation. Vir- 
gin procreation and resuscitation from 
apparent death are ordinary phenomena 
for the naturalist/' 

Besides, is it the truth that the other 
evangelists and St. Paul never refer to the 
supernatural birth of Jesus ? Does not 
St. John's '' And the Word became 
flesh '' coupled with his sublime forth- 
shadowings of the preexistence of the 
Word — ^'In the beginning was the 
Word, and the Word was with God, 
and the word was God/' necessitate a 
birth supernatural ? And, it seems to 
me, as mountains imply and rest upon 
their rocky bases, so do St. Paul's state- 
ments concerning our Lord and Saviour 
imply and rest upon an actual intrusion 
of Deity into our humanity in the august 
Person Jesus Christ. Take but a single 
specimen : '' Who being originally in the 
form of God, counted it not a thing to 
be grasped at, to be on an equality with 



178 His Own Person 

God ; but emptied Himself, taking the 
form of a bond-servant, becoming in the 
likeness of man ; and being found in 
fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, 
becoming obedient unto death, yea, the 
death of the cross'' (Phil. ii. 6-8). 
What can such language of St. Paul's be 
but the more internal and philosophic 
statement of the historic fact of Incarna- 
tion by supernatural conception and birth 
which St. Matthew and St. Luke record .? 
And still besides, as the complex per- 
sonality of Jesus rises before you, in all 
its sinlessness, various loveliness, majesty, 
can anything be more precisely congru- 
ous with such personality than is the 
supernatural birth ? Would not a merely 
natural procreation and birth be most 
incongruous with the character of Jesus ? 
Utterly and without the slightest reserva- 
tion do I myself joyfully subscribe to 
that great and fundamental article of the 
creed, commonly called the Apostles', 
^'conceived by the Holy Ghost; born 



So7ne Conclusions 179 

of the Virgin Mary. As Canon Liddon 
says, ''And Christianity from the first 
has proclaimed herself, not the authoress 
of an apotheosis, but the child and pro- 
duct of an Incarnation/'* But that is 
precisely and necessarily what you do, 
denying the supernatural birth — you 
apotheosize man ; you refuse belief in 
the differentiating test and note of your 
Christianity — separating it by whole 
diameters from all other religions — that 
Christianity is the religion of the descent 
of God to man in Jesus Christ. Most 
congruous with the essential heart and 
meaning of Christianity is the super- 
natural birth of Jesus. 

//. As to the Miracles of Jesus 

How congruous with the personality of 
Jesus is the recorded fact of His miracles. 
Why, in the presence of this Divine-hu- 
man One, should the enwreathing Him 
by beneficient signs, wonders, works, ex- 

* The D'kinity of our Lord^ p. 27. 



i8o His Own Person 

cite surprise or criticism or opposition? 
Would not their absence be the real rea- 
son for surprise ? Would not the ab- 
sence of them, in view of what Jesus is, 
be the utmost unnatural? Primarily it 
is Jesus who legitimizes His miracles, 
not His miracles Jesus. As the English 
writer, Mr. J. Brierley, has so well said, 
" We are beating about the bush in talk- 
ing about Christ's miracles ; Christ Him- 
self is the miracle." 

///. As to the Resurrection of Jesus^ and 
the Other Life 

One day, years since, I passed out of 
the beautiful brightness of the Italian 
sunshine into the gloom of an old church 
in Florence. 

The church was very dark — so dark, 
and perhaps my eyes were blinded by 
the radiance out of which I had just 
come, that I could scarcely see to guide 
myself along its aisle. But pushing fur- 
ther into the darkness of the church, and 



Some Conclusions i8i 

as I now remember it, turning a kind of 
corner of a pillar — suddenly, and with the 
full light of the day gleaming upon it 
through a clear cleft in a distant window, 
I came upon a picture which stopped, 
thrilled, held me. It was Guido Reni's 
'' Ecce Homo '' — the picture of the head 
of Jesus with the crown of thorns. I 
had often seen reproductions of it in print 
and photograph ; but now I stood be- 
fore the matchless original. The sublime 
sorrow of the face, and at the same time 
the patient and fathomless self-sacrifice of 
it ; the blood dropping on the face here 
and there from the wounds the thorns 
had gashed — how vividly real it seemed 
to me, as I stood there in the gloom, 
while the light glorified the picture. 

Fasten your thought on this picture 
for a moment — Ecce Homo, Behold the 
Man! 

Think what He had suffered — the task- 
ing farewell from the disciples in that 
upper room in Jerusalem the night be- 



1 82 His Own Person 

fore ; the awful agony in Gethsemane ; 
the desertion of His disciples — do not 
think He would not feel the desertion of 
His friends as you and I would feel it ; 
the caviling inquisition by Annas, Caia- 
phas, Sanhedrin ; in the early morning 
after that fateful night, the trials by Pi- 
late, by Herod, and again by Pilate, and 
all the howling rage of the mob surround- 
ing ; then the lacerating scourging ; then 
the sport against Him of the rough sol- 
diery — putting in His hand a reed for 
sceptre and crushing upon His brow the 
thorns for crown, and blindfolding, smit- 
ing, spitting on Him ; then Pilate, seek- 
ing to stir a little pity in the heartless 
throng, leading Him forth and saying, as 
at the moment of this picture, Rcce 
Homo — Behold the man ! But the mob 
spurns Him, chooses, instead of Him, 
the murderer BarabbaSv All this He 
suffered. 

Think what He suffered afterward. 
The journey to the place of crucifixion ; 



Some Conclusions 183 

the fainting beneath the heavy cross-beam 
He was obliged to carry — do you wonder 
He fainted after the garden agony, the 
trials, the insults, the scourgings, the 
sleeplessness of that fearful night and 
early morning ? Then the awful cruci- 
fixion itself ; the worn, bleeding body 
hanging from four great wounds ; the 
last cry — '' It is finished ; Father, into 
Thy hands I commit my spirit ;" the 
head falling death-struck ; the stab of the 
Roman spear ; the heart's blood draining 
out. 

All this He suffered, and thus He 
went into the deadest death. Then 
there was the burial in the new tomb. 

Suppose that had been all. It would 
have been all — as far as this world goes, 
it must have been all — had Jesus been no 
more and other than an ordinary man, 
even though he were, of men merely, the 
loftiest. Then those faithless lines of 
Matthew Arnold had been the true 
epitaph for Jesus — 



184 His Own Person 

" Now He is dead ! Far hence He lies 

In the lone Syrian town ; 
And on His grave, with shining eyes, 

The Syrian stars look down." 

But no Syrian stars with shining eyes 
do look down upon His grave. Lo, on 
that great first day of the week that new 
tomb was empty of Jesus. He vacated 
it by the glorious resurrection. That is 
the effulgent fact. " But now is Christ 
risen from the dead (I Cor. xv. 20). 

I noticed, in the vale of Chamouni, 
that the mountains ruled the valley, not 
the valley the mountains. The valley 
could only wind and go as the mountains 
let them. The valley could not thrust 
away the mountains, it must submit to 
them. 

So does the effulgent fact of the resur- 
rection of Jesus rule history. It cannot 
be explained away. It cannot be thrust 
out of history. It compels history and 
marshals it. 

Even David Friedrich Strauss annihi- 



Some Conclusions 185 

lates the much vaunted swoon theory of 
the resurrection of Jesus. He says, 
'' It is impossible that a Being who had 
stolen half-dead out of the sepulcher, 
who crept about weak and ill, wanting 
medical treatment, who required band- 
aging, strengthening and indulgence, 
and who still at last yielded to His suffer- 
ings, could have given to the disciples 
the impression that he was a conqueror 
over death and the grave, the Prince of 
Life; an impression which lay at the 
bottom of their future ministry. Such 
a resuscitation could only have weakened 
the impression which he had made upon 
them in life and in death; at the most, 
could only have given it an elegiac voice, 
but could by no possibility have changed 
this sorrow into enthusiasm, or have 
elevated their reverence into worship.'' 
So does every other theory, which 
seeks to explain the resurrection of Jesus 
in the terms of the merely natural, van- 
ish as the mists do before the sun, in the 



1 86 His Own Person 

presence of the radiant and unconquer- 
able fact. 

And the resurrection of Jesus was an 
utter vanquishing of death. I have de- 
tailed His sufferings and grim-visaged 
death that against their background 
truer vision might be had of the vast 
glory of His triumph. Jesus rose into 
immortal health and strength. It was as 
though death had been an invigorating 
bath. Behold the Man thorn-crowned 
and sinking as in Guido Reni's picture. 
But do not too long and only in such 
guise behold Him. Behold Him in the 
victory of His resurrection. And how 
congruous with His complex, divine- 
human personality is the glorious resur- 
rection of Jesus ! How incongruous 
with all He was and taught had death 
been able to maintain dominion over 
Him! 

And the resurrection of Jesus is the 
main and masterful certainty of the fact 
of the other life. What a '"pent-up 



Some Conclusions 187 

Utica" our thought of life had been 
without it. On the thither side of death 
Jesus emerges, and from Him, risen from 
the tomb, as hght from the sun, streams 
the effulgent certainty that death is not 
''wall but door." 

Says Professor Adolf Harnack : " This 
grave'' — of Jesus — " was the birthplace of 
the indestructible belief that death is van- 
quished, and there is a life eternal^ It is 
useless to cite Plato ; it is useless to point 
to the Persian religion, and the ideas and 
the literature of later Judaism. All that 
would have perished and has perished ; 
but the certainty of the resurrection and 
of a life eternal which is bound up with 
the grave in Joseph's garden has not per- 
ished, and on the conviction that Jesus 
lives we still base those hopes of citizen- 
ship in an eternal city, which makes our 
earthly life worth living and tolerable. 
' He delivered them who through fear of 
death were all their lifetime subject to 

* The Italics are Professor Harnack's. 



1 88 His Own Person 

bondage/ as the writer of the Epistle to 
the Hebrews confesses. That is the 
point, and although there be exceptions 
to its sway, wherever, despite all the 
weight of nature, there is a strong faith 
in the infinite value of the soul ; where- 
ever death has lost its terrors ; wherever 
the sufferings of the present are measured 
against a future of glory, this feeling of 
life is bound up with the conviction that 
Jesus Christ has passed through death, 
that God has awakened Him and raised 
Him to life and glory. What else can 
we believe but that the earliest disciples 
also found the ultimate foundation of 
their faith in the living Lord to be the 
strength which had gone out from Him ? 
. . . It is not by any speculative ideas 
of philosophy but by the vision of Jesus' 
life and death and by the feeling of His 
imperishable union with God that man- 
kind, so far as it believes these things, 
has attained to that certainty of eternal 
life for which it was meant, and which it 



Some Conclusions 189 

dimly discerns — eternal life in time and 
beyond time/'* 

IV- As to the Rational Personal Attitude 
toward Jesus 

I was riding through the streets and 
into the country about Leadville, Colo- 
rado. My companion was a young man 
who had come thither to take charge of 
some large mining interests. As we rode 
together, he was telling me how unsatis- 
factory to himself had been his life, how 
full of mists, as to religious certainties, 
his mind was ; how he longed for such 
certainty, how perplexed he was about 
discovering the path which could lead 
him to it. 

Then, substantially, this conversation 
took place between us. Said I, " Sup- 
pose you wanted further to explore, or to 
wisely locate gold-mines in this region, 
to whom would you go for suggestion 

* What is Christianity ? by Professor Adolf Harnack, 
pp. 175, 176. 



IQO His Own Person 

and help ? Would you go to somebody 
who himself knew little or nothing of 
gold mining, of the tests for gold's pres- 
ence, of the sort of sands or strata amid 
which gold would be likeliest found? 
Or would you go to someone who, by 
long experience in and careful study of 
such gold-bearing regions as these, had 
become expert about them ? '* " Cer- 
tainly I should go to an expert in such 
matters," my friend instantly replied. 

Then I answered, ""Is not Jesus Christ 
the expert in religion ? Since He is at 
once Lord and Brother, since He came 
forth from God to tell us of Him, and, 
sharing our nature by incarnation, can 
tell us of God in the terms of our nature, 
is it possible to find a higher expert in 
the great matters pertaining to both God 
and man than Jesus ? Must He not be, 
what He declares Himself to be, and 
what His sinless life and wonderful teach- 
ing also declare Him to be — the Way, 
the Truth, the Life? What better 



Some Conclusions 191 

thing, or surer, can you do than to un- 
conditionally surrender yourself to this 
divine-human Jesus ? Jesus is the path 
into scattered doubts and religious cer- 
tainty/' 

My friend, in effect, said he would do 
as I suggested — accept Jesus as personal 
Lord and personal Saviour, and, look- 
ing to Him for truth, seek to practice 
what Jesus should teach him in his own 
living. 

If my friend did this honestly, I am 
sure he got on into the light. Can there 
be a better thing to do ? Can there be a 
truer, nobler attitude toward this divine- 
human Jesus ? Said Jesus, and countless 
experiences of searching souls bear out 
the truth of what He said : '' If any man 
willeth to do His will, he shall know of 
the teaching, whether it is from God, or 
whether I speak from myself." '' I am 
the light of the world, he that foUoweth 
Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall 
have the light of life/' 



192 His Own Person 

" What first were guessed as points, I now know 
stars." 

" I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ 
Accepted by the reason, solves for thee 
' All questions in the earth and out of it. 
And has so far advanced thee to be wise."* 

* A Death in the Desert^ by Robert Browning. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS 



Ananda the disciple of Buddha, 51. 

Arnold, Matthew, poem on the grave of Jesus, 84. 

Sir Edwin, on Christianity and Hinduism, ^S. 

Sir Edwin, poem on the Humanity of Jesus, 103. 
Ashmore, Dr. William, missionary to China, ;^S, 

B 

Barnasha, the Aramaic word, 119. 

Beck, John, Mora\dan missionary, 29. 

Boat on Sea of Gahlee, 81. 

Browning, Robert, quotation from " A Death in the Desert," 

192. 
Bushnell, Dr. Horace, on the sinlessness of Jesus, 70. 

C 

Carey, Dr. William, 29. 

Carlyle, Thomas, on great men, 120. 

on the value of a diphthong, 146. 
Certainty of the Teaching of Jesus, 39. 
Chad-^ick, George A., on the historicity of Jesus, 7. 
Challenge of Jesus that He reveals God, 140. 

as to His sinlessness, 68. 
Chamouni, Vale of, 184. 
Character of Jesus, 72. 
Chinese Christians, 28. 

Clarke, Dr. William N., on essential difference between God 
and man, 144. 

M 193 



194 Index of Subjects 

Cobb, Frances Power, on historicity of Jesus, 7. 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, on criminality of sin, 63. 

Crosby, Dr. Howard, on Jewish thought of the Messiah, 106. 

D 
Dawson, William J., on probable appearance of Jesus, 78. 
Denney, Dr. James, on greatness of the consciousness of Jesus, 

48. 

on Daniel's vision, 1 16. 
Determining question as to Jesus, 142. 
Derivation of the title " Son of Man," 114-119. 
Didon on the meaning of the claims of Jesus, 54. 
Differentiation of Himself by Jesus from all others, 135. 
Disraeli, Benjamin, 10. 
Divine titles. Acceptance of, by Jesus, 139. 
Doubters' confessions concerning Jesus, 3-10. 

E 

Edersheim, Dr. Alfred, on Jewish parties in the time of Christ, 

14. 
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, on influence of Jesus, 4. 
Environment, 13. 
Example of Jesus, i;7^, 

F 

Forgiveness of sins. The claim of Jesus to, 49. 
Fulfilment of prophecy in Jesus, 47. 
"For His sake" — poem, 55. 

G 

Gladstone, William Ewart, 28. 

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, on historicity of Jesus, 5. 

Gore, Bishop, on essential Deity of Jesus, 146. 

H 

Harnack, Prof. Adolph, as to the reality of the resurrection 
of Jesus, 7. 
as to the consciousness of Jesus, 140. 
as to the Supernatural Birth of Jesus, 
171. 



Index of Subjects 195 

Heredity, lo. 

Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell, on first sin, 59. 

Homoousion and Homoiousion, 145. 

Human feeling of criminality for sin, 61. 

Hunt, Holman, picture of " The Shadow of the Cross," 27, 

Huxley, Prof., as to analogy of Supernatural Birth, 176. 

J 

Jesus blessing little children, Dutch picture of, 31. 

His claims, 45-59. 

His dynamic and perpetuating power, 73-77. 

His home, 20. 

His national atmosphere, 14. 

His personal appearance, 77. 

His position toward the sexes, 30. 

His sinlessness, 59-72. 

His teachings, 31-45. 

His toil, 25. 

His universality, 10-31. 

the Son of God, 1 22-1 31, 

the Son of Man, 87-95. 
Jerusalem, The destruction of, 43. 
Jews, The, IT-13. ■■ 

Judas, his remorse, (^']. 

K 
Kenosis, 165. 

L 

Lanier, Sidney, poem on the " Crystal Christ," 113. 

Leckey, WilHam E. H., on historicity of Jesus, 6. 

Liddon, Canon, on incarnation, 179. 

Lonely and unique personal relation of Jesus with the infinite 

Father, 135. 
Love of God as disclosed by Jesus, 148. 

M 

Master, Lord, God, 132-134. 

Messiah, The, 31, 32. 

Mill, John Stuart, on historicity of Jesus, 9. 

Milman, Dean, 44. 

Miracles, 179. 



196 Index of Subjects 

Mount of Olives, 45. 
Rainier, 2. 
Washington, 41. 

N 
Napoleon concerning Jesus, 75. 
Narrative of the Supernatural Birth, 174. 
Nazareth, the town of Jesus, 18. 
Newton, Sir Isaac, 28. 

Number of times the designation Son of Man occurs in the 
four Gospels, 87. 
of passages in the four Gospels in which Jesus calls 

Himself, or is called, the Son of God, 123-129. 
of passages in the four Gospels in which Jesus calls 
God, "Father, my Father, the Father," 129. 

P 

Parker, Theodore, on historicity of Jesus, 4. 

Perpetua, 50. 

Personality of Jesus historic fact, 3. 

Prayers of Jesus proof of His sinlessness, 69. 

Predictive element in the teaching of Jesus, 42. 

Pre-existence of Jesus, 45. 

Problem of the Person of Jesus, 150-170. 

R 

Rational personal attitude toward Jesus, 184. 
Renan, 2. 

Reni, Guido, the '* Ecce Homo," 181. 
Resurrection and the other life, 180. 
Richter, Jean Paul, 84. 
Robertson, Frederic W., 113. 

Robinson, Dr. E. G., as to the distinction between nature and 
person, 162. 
as to the single personality of Jesus, 164. 
Rousseau, on the historicity of Jesus, 3. 
Ruskin, John, on the two natures in Jesus, 155. 

S 
Scope of the claims of Jesus, 56. 
Sea of Galilee, Sailing on and storm on, 82. 



Index of Subjects 197 

Shakespeare, 28. 

Smith, Dr. Henry B., on contrasts in Jesus, 151. 

Socrates, 39. 

Son of God, The, 1 22-131. 

Son of Man, The, 87-95. 

Stalker, Dr. James, "The Christology of Christ," 120. 

Strauss, David Friedrich, on historicity of Jesus, 5. 

on swooning theory of the resurrec- 
tion, 185. 
Supernatural Birth of Jesus, 171. 
Supreme allegiance, claim of Jesus to, 50. 



Teaching of Jesus not impracticable, 33. 

of the self-designation of Jesus as Son of Man 
as to reality, 96. 
as to body, 97. 
as to mind, 99. 

as to feelings and affections, 100. 
as to craving companionship, 100. 
as to righteous wrath, loi. 
as to inner conflicts, loi. 
as to spiritual burdens and depressions, 102. 
Teaching, A self-designation, service, 103. 

veiling, 105. 

disclosure, 108. 

ideals, no. 

contrast, no. 

fitness for function, in. 



Various relations in which Jesus designates Himself as Son of 

Man, 88-95. 
Vinci, Leonardo da, picture of the "Last Supper," 169. 

W 

Winningness of Jesus, 78. 

Words, the importance of, in the thought of Jesus, 85. 

Whittier, John Greenleaf , poem " Our Master," 74. 



INDEX OF TEXTS 



Exodus 
Psalm 

Ezekiel 

Daniel 
Matthew 



XX. 3 

viii. 3, 
Ixxx. 17 

ii. I 

iii. I 

vi. I, 

xxxvii. 3 

vii. 13, 

iii. 16, 

iv. 3 

V. 17 

vii. 21 

viii. 20 

25 

xi. 19 

27 

28 

xii. 8 

34, 

50 





54 


4 


114 




114 




115 


* 


115 


2 


115 




115 


14 


116 


17 


123 




123 

48 




127 
88 


3^ 


53 
88 


126, 


136, 




-^zi 




52 


91 
36 


134 
86 




127 



Matthew xiii. y] 


89 


xiv. 2>Z 


123 


xvi. 13-17 


94 


15-17 


124 


20 


131 


27 95 


117 


xvii. 10-13 


91 


22, 23 


94 


XX. 28 


89 


xxii. 37, 38 


54 


xxiii. 10 


131 


xxiv. 5, 23, 24 


131 


30 


117 


36 100, 


167 


XXV. 31-46 


59 


xxvi. 24 


90 


yi^z^ 


100 


64 


131 


xxvii. 43 


126 


xxviii. 18, 20 


139 


Mark ii. 1-12 


50 


10-12 


89 


iii. 5 


lOI 


iv. 41 


84 


V. 6,7 


124 



198 



Index of Texts 



199 



Mark 



Luke 



John 



viii. 38 


128 


ix. 41 


131 


X. 21 


100 


32-34 


95 


xii. 35 


131 


xiii. I, 2 


43 


21 


131 


32 100 
xiv. 61, 62 


, 126 
117, 




121 


XV. 34 


102 


39 


124 


i- 32, 35 


124 


ii. 40 


118 


40, 46, 47 


99 


iv. 18, 21 47 


131 


41 


125 


V. 8 


139 


vi. 22 
ix. 26 
xi. 1-5 


90 

69 


xviii. 31 
xix. 10 


90 
89 


43»44 


43 


XX. 41 

xxii. 29 


128 


44 
67,68 


102 
131 


70 
xxiii. 34, -^6 


125 
128 


xxiv. 26 

44 
46 

49 


132 

48 

132 

136 


i. 12 


138 


12, 13 


142 


14 


131 


18 


130 


34 


125 


40 


20 



John 



1.49 


125 


51 


93 


iii. 13 


92 


16 


-^zi 


16-18 


131 


iv. 42 


132 


V. 19, 20 


127 


. 25 


129 


VI. 37 


52 


38 


46 


46 


130 


53-58 


92 


62 


92, 138 


^Z 


86 


69 


125 


viii. 31, 32 


86 


42 


46, 138 


58 


46, 139 


X. 17 


128 


36 


130 


xi. 4 


130 


5 


100 


25 


52 


27 


125, 132 


xii. 23, 24 


93 


27 


102 


32,34 


95 


xiii. 3 


130 


12-17 


-^Zl^ 


14 


134 


xiv. 6 


52 


7-9 


134 


9 


52, 140 


13 


127 


20 


128 


xvi. 12 


105 


28 


138 


xvii. I 


129 


4 


69 


5 


47, 139 


xviii. II 


129 


xix. 7 


125 



200 


In 


de:- 


^ ^^ 


f 1 exts 






John 


XX. 17 

28 
28,29 




129 

140 


I Cor. 

Philippians 


XV. 20 
ii. 6-8 


184 

178 




31 

xxi. 22 


126, 


132 

52 


Colossians 


ii. 9 


147 


Acts 


vii. 56 




109 


I Timothy 


iii. 16 


162 




X. 26 

38 




140 
104 


Hebrews 


ii. 16-18 
iv. 15 


159 
112 



The Teaching of 'Jesus CGncerning the 
Kingdom of God and the Church 

BY 

Geerhardus VoSy Ph,D.y D.D. 



PRESS NOTICES. 

** This is a thorough yet compact study of Christ's teaching on the 
Kingdom and the Church.'* Auburn Seminary Rcvieiv. 

**A vigorous and discriminating discussion of a vital theme. . . will be 
read with help and satisfaction by a large audience. ' ' The Baptist Ar- 

gUi. 

**The discussion in this volume is of a great question, and the treat- 
ment is attractive and luminous." The Herald and Presbyter. 

**A scholarly volume. . . . the whole argument is well expressed and 
worthy of profound consideration." The Examiner. 

"Scholarly, comprehensive and condensed. The discussion shows 
wide reading of the literature of the subject, evangelical conviction and 
feeling, and great skill in the use of exegetical power. The conclu- 
sions reached, as briefly restated in the closing chapter, will commend 
themselves to earnest and moderate men, and the whole discussion will 
be fascinating and suggestive to trained students." N. T. Observer. 

"Impartial, reverent and very careful. . . . Dr. Vos* standpoint is at 
once modem and temperate. His study will be of value, not merely to 
the trained student but to the general reader as well. ' * The Church- 
man. 

** The author has given a clear, strong, convincing argument in re- 
gard to his conception of the nature and place of the Kingdom of God 
in the world. It is a book that is profitable for reading, study and re- 
reading." The Midland Methodist. 

"A scholarly exposition of what is recognized to be the dominant 
theme of Christ's teaching. Especially valuable is the exegesis of Pe- 
ter's confession and Christ's consequent declarations." The Congrega- 
tionalist. 

i2mo. Cloth bound. Pp. viy 203. Price 75 cents. 



The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the 

Scriptures 

BY 

David James Burr ell, D.D., LL.D. 

PRESS NOTICES. 

" In the preparation of this volume Dr. Burrell has rendered 
the church a real service 7' United Presbyterian, 

**The argument is strong and legitimate and the style 
vivacious and attractive.'^ Lutheran IVorld. 

**A book that must appeal to every thoughtful mind." 
Midland Methodist. 

'* The book is one of value and well worthy a place in the 
series of which it forms a part." Religious Telescope. 

^' A thoughtful book by an able writer on a timely topic.'* 
Christian Instructor. 

** The style of the discussion is brilliant and its tone kindly 
and persuasive. The IV^atchman. 

*'A bold and ringing book, and we bid it Godspeed." 
Baptist Argus, 

"A strong and valuable contribution." Herald and Pres- 
hyter, 

" Well written and very readable." The Living Church. 

** Dr. Burrell writes with profound conviction and much 
fervor." N. Y, Christian Advocate. 

*' The book is most timely." Christian Observer, 

"The book is done with absolute thoroughness." The 
Advance. 

'* One of the best books extant on the theme." The Observer, 

"From start to finish the book is one that will interest." 
Zion's Herald. 

i2mo. Cloth bound. Pp,vu,2!i, Price 7^ cents. 



The Teaching of^esus Concerning His 
Own Mission 

BY 

Frank Hugh Foster, Ph.D., D.D. 
PRESS NOTICES. 

** The style is clear, the thought elevated, the topics treated of are, 
in their logical deductions, extremely practical. Students of the Bible 
generally will find this a very useful volume to peruse and possess.** 
N, T, Observer. 

** If this first volume of this series is a fair specimen and representative 
of those that will follow, the series will not lack in ability or interest. 
Dr. Fost;er's position is that of the conservative scholar who neverthe- 
less is familiar with current critical investigations. The style of presen- 
tation is clear and admirably adapted to the needs of the layman and the 
student.** T/ie Interior. 

"This is a wonderfully interesting, suggestive and stimulating little 
book.'* The Baptist Teacher. 

**A very thoughtful and helpful book. . . will be found instructive 
and quickening. ' * The Examiner. 

"The book is the work of a thorough scholar, is conservative yet 
progressive, and gives a remarkably wholesome presentation of a very 
important subject.** The Baptist Argus. 

* * Scholarly but popular. . . will be found extremely useful to all who 
desire a concise but accurate and comprehensive presentation of the lead- 
ing teachings of Jesus concerning his mission.'* Baptist Re-vie^u and 

Expositor. 

"Clear and simple enough for the intelligent layman, but not unhelp- 
ful to the clergyman who wants clearer ideas as to his Lord's atoning 
work." The Treasury. 

iimo. Cloth bound. Pp. viii, 136. Price ^^ cents. 



The Teaching of Jesus Concerning God 

the Father 

BY 

Archibald T. Robertson, D.D. 

PRESS NOTICES, 

"A fresh, reverent and strong presentation of the vital theme." 
Louisville Courier JournaL 

'*No one can read the book without having his conception 
of God quickened, and having a clearer view of the mission of 
Jesus as the revealer of the Father." Canadian Baptist, 

**The method is scholarly, the spirit is evangelical and the 
result is worthy of the careful attention of devout readers." 
Herald and Presbyter, 

*' Both the subject and the writer promised so much that we 
read it through, though tired from a hard day's work, and we 
found that all the promises were fulfilled." Baptist Argus. 

'* Reverent in tone, dignified in style, helpful in purpose, and 
true to the heart of the message of Christ." Religious Telescope, 

**An original study of the Scriptures." Baptist Standard, 

"It is well and wisely done." JVatchword and Truth. 

'* Comprehensive and spiritual." The Advance, 

**A sound, safe treatment of the subject in hand." Central 
Baptist. 

** Able and scholarly." Christian Observer. 

** The style is bright and vigorous — there is not a dull page 
in the book. It is written for the people. Those who want 
to know in brief compass what Jesus teaches about God will 
find it arranged, explained and emphasized in this book." 
Louisville Courier-fournal. 

i2mo. Cloth bound. Pp.viii, 182. Price y^ cents. 



The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the 
Christian Life 

BY 

Gerard B. F, Hallock, D.D. 



PRESS NOTICES 

**One of the best yet issued in the series." — Religious Telescope, 

"This is getting back to the foundation of the Christian life — 
Jesus Christ." — Pittsburg Christian Advocate. 

*'It adds value to the series and is a worthy volume just by 
itself." — The Park Review. 

"A scholarly and exceedingly simple presentation of the case, 
and the illustrations are apt." — Rochester Herald. 

"Every chapter is full of helpful, inspiring thoughts." — Chris- 
tian Union Herald. 

"It bears throughout a Scriptural, pastoral and loving cast which 
fits it to be useful as well as safe." — Presbyterian. 

"Wholly trustworthy and admirable." — Western Christian 
Advocate. 

*'Ten vigorous and earnest chapters." — The Observer. 

"When you read the book you know what the author means, 
why he believes it, and that it is true." — Christian Intelligencer. 

"A capital discussion of practical Christianity, reminding us of 
Wilberforce." — Western Recorder. 

"Such books put us on a solid foundation." — Baltimore Meth- 
odist. 

"It maintains the high degree of excellence reached by the 
other volumes of the admirable series to which it belongs." — 
Baptist Commonwealth. 



i2mo. Cloth bound. Pp. vi^ 193. Price^ "jc^c. 



The Teaching of "Jesus Concerning the 
Future Life 

BY 

Willis Judson Beecher^ D.D. 



PRESS NOTICES 

**A most sane and suggestive exposition of an exceedingly im- 
portant and vitally interesting doctrine." — Baptist Commonwealths 

"A clear, concise discussion of the future life as Jesus taught 
it." — Westminster, 

"A fine piece of apologetics." — Reformed Church Messenger, 

"Treated with learning, discrimination and skill." — Biblical 
World. 

''Entitled to be qalled an 'epoch-making' book on this sub- 
ject." — Christian Evangelist, 

"Dr. Beecher has laid a good foundation, carefully defining 
Scripture language and separating imagery from statement of 
fact." — Expository Times, 

"A valuable contribution." — Lutheran World. 

"A remarkably suggestive and instructive book." — Baptist Argus. 

"A trustworthy guide." — Baptist Commonwealth, 

"Scriptural, sane and satisfying." — Presbyterian Banner, 

"Suggestive and helpful." — Living Church. 

"One of the best of the series." — Congregationalist. 

"A notable contribution to our literature on Christian doctrine." 
— Christian Observer, 



i2mo. Cloth bound. Pp. vi, 197. Price J^c. 



The Teaching of yesus Concerning 
The Holy Spirit 

BY 

Louis Burton Crane ^ A.M. 
PRESS NOTICES 

"A most valuable book. The life of any Christian will be 
greatly enriched by its perusal." — Rochester Press News, 

" Such a volume as this will direct students of the Bible along a 
very important line of theological study." — The Independent. 

"A close and critical study of a sensitive and mighty subject." — 
Michigan Christian Advocate. 

' ' The book aids us to a lofty and true estimate of the character 
and ever prevailing power of the Ploly Spirit." — The Christian 
Nation. 

"In this day of carping criticism and so much theory, it 
is refreshing to see God's Word handled so reverently." — Chris- 
tian Observer, 

•'Reverent, devout and conservative, keeping well within the 
limits of scriptural statement. ' ' — Record of Christian Work. 

" We have seen no book of equal size that gives a more satis- 
factory treatment of this subject." — The Christian Evangelist. 

" A fresh and interesting discussion of an old theme from a ne\V 
viewpoint." — The Baptist Organ. 

"Ripe scholarship ,« thorough research, intelligent insight, and 
judicious exposition." — Baptist Commonwealth. 

i2mo. Cloth bound. Pp. xiv^i^^. Price^^^cts. 



The Teaching of yesus Concerning 
Christian Conduct 

BY 

Andrew C. Zenos^ D.D. 
PRESS NOTICES 

" This work impresses one as among the best of the course, 
the ground being covered with the author's habitual thorough- 
ness." — The Interior. 

* ' For the busy man who is not able to enter into an elaborate 
argument these chapters will prove very helpful."— J'A^ Christian 
Intelligencer. 

*' The book is written with admirable clearness and convinc- 
ingness, and shows how many-sided and practical the teaching of 
Jesus is as applied to human conduct." — Presbyterian Banner. 

•'The book is written in lucid style, is highly instructive and 
useful . " — The Lutheran World. 

" His interpretations of the precepts of Christ are judicious, and 
the lessons he deduces therefrom are worthy of our earnest 
thought." — Baptist Commonwealth. 

** In this little volume Jesus' teachings are set forth briefly, but 
in a comprehensive and orderly manner. Nothing could be 
better." — Pittsburg Christian Advocate. 

" The volume is attractive in appearance, and the treatment of 
the subject is pleasing and helpful. " — Herald and Presbyter. 

*' The volume is full of careful thought strengthened by studied 
research. This should be one of the minister's handbooks." — 
The Morning Star. 

I imo. Cloth bound. Pp. ;c, 1 7 1 . Pricey 7 5 cts. 

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